REPUBLIC REBORN

There’s a grim irony in the anticlimax of the year-long “Trump colluded with Russia” investigation.  The entire ordeal took on the aura of the most paranoid of conspiracy theories, with the majority of the anti-Trump crowd wanting so badly for it to be true that they would take any evidence, no matter how flimsy, if it could confirm this belief.  Well, the only “evidence” of interference into our electoral system that the investigative team could come up with was a Russian “troll farm”, or a group of people sitting at computers talking about the US election on Facebook and Twitter.  This group of people spent a total of $100,000 on political ads, a grain of sand in a desert compared with the millions spent by other special interest groups.  Needless to say, there are plenty of other countries interfering in US domestic politics to a far greater degree than Russia.  Why no uproar over the influence of the Israel lobby or Saudi Arabia’s  political pull in Washington DC?

Anyway.  Now that there is uproar now over this pathetic “troll farm”, concerned citizens should be informed of their own government’s involvement in the creation and funding of its own troll farms that are used to sow dissent abroad, as well as here at home.  And what our government does, in the realm of foreign election interference and the propagation of propaganda, dwarfs the actions of every other State in the star system.

Specifically, The Hill recently reported on a $40 million influx of cash to the “Global Engagement Center”, which is the U.S. variant of the troll farm.  Ostensibly set up to counter foreign online propaganda directed at the U.S., this Obama-era troll farm is almost certainly being used to discredit the very real online critics of the United State’s actions abroad.  Disturbingly, DOD undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs Steve Goldstein had this to say about the boondoggle:

“This funding is critical to ensuring that we continue an aggressive response to malign influence and disinformation and that we can leverage deeper partnerships with our allies, Silicon Valley, and other partners in this fight.”

There’s something Freudian about this statement.  The malign influence and disinformation will, of course, be emanating from the Goldstein’s pet propaganda hub, used mainly to counter that most dangerous enemy of all governments, world without end: the comments’ section.

The comments’ section is the public arena where the common people eviscerate the actions of the inveterate asses, elected and unelected, that have run our country into the ground.  So, internet trolls have been mobilized en masse and deployed to the far reaches of unfettered, online speech, to counter “disinformation”. “We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them on the landing grounds!”

Also, leveraging “deeper partnerships” with the tech giants doesn’t inspire peace of mind to any degree.  Will they also be drafted into the troll wars?  It’s a certainty that they already have, though. Reason reported back in November, in a piece entitled, Is Silicon Valley Building the Infrastructure for a Police State?, author Zach Weissmueller details how Silicon Valley “threat intelligence” firms, such as Palantir, are building AI surveillance tools designed to make sense of all the data that US intelligence agencies capture every year.

And there is no doubt that these firms are on a quid pro quo basis with the federal intelligence agencies.  They spy, and provide the government with the tools for total surveillance, in exchange for market protection and other favors.

But back to trolls.  US funding for internet trolls is nothing new.  Just look at this piece from The Guardian back in 2011: Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media.

Basically, fake online personas are created and then used to influence online discussion and crowd out undesired opinions.  One imagines it will be an automated AI army that will flood the ‘net with pro-American propaganda soon.

No, Russia has nothing on the US in terms of online propaganda, despite what it wants us to believe.

New York Times: The sublime and scary future of cameras with AI brains

NPR: Supreme Court seems unconvinced of Microsoft’s argument to shield email data stored abroad

Fast Company: Google rejected 57% of 2.4 million “right to be forgotten” privacy requests

Gizmodo: A judge denied Facebook’s attempt to kill a privacy suit over biometric face prints

Daily Mail: Facebook posts new details about its facial recognition tech amid lawsuit that claims ‘face prints’ may violate users’ privacy

We’ve got our own troll farms too, and they’re just as dopey as Russia’s. Activist Post: State Department gets $40 million to fund new propaganda troll farm

Reuters: Google’s Clips camera is latest effort to bring AI into home gadgets

Inverse: China uses Big Data to target minority groups, says Human Rights Watch. Ed: The fundamental reason for governments’ interest in Big Data is population control.

Miami Herald: Miami’s airport adopts facial recognition technology as cure for wait times. Ed: The Surveillance State is being sold, successfully, in the form of short-term, short-sighted benefits.

WND: Release the shooting surveillance video!  Ed: It is disturbing that the abundant video footage of the recent shooters (Vegas, Florida) has never been presented to the public in any form.

Politico: Sessions: Justice Department watchdog investigating GOP Russia memo claims

TechCrunch: Warrantless surveillance law proves it’s time to take privacy into our own hands

Justin Raimondo writes better stricken with debilitating cancer than every other internet scribbler in peak health.  His latest column skewering the phony ‘Russia-gate’ fracas proves this once again.  A slice:

“One by one, the plaster gods fall, cracked and crumbled on the ground: the latest is Bernie Sanders, the Great Pinko Hope of the (very few) remaining Democrats with a modicum of sense who reject the “Russia! Russia! Russia!” paranoia of Rep. Adam Schiff and what I call the party’s California Crazies. The official Democratic leadership seems to have no real commitment to anything other than fealty to a few well-known oligarchs, who provide the party with needed cash, a burning hatred of Russia – an issue no ordinary voter outside of the Sunshine State loony bin and Washington, D.C. cares about – and exotic issues of interest only to the upper class virtue-signalers who are now their main constituency (e.g., where will trans people go to the bathroom?). Overlaying this potpourri of nothingness, the glue holding it all together, is pure unadulterated hatred: of President Trump, of Trump voters, of Middle America in general, and, of course, fear and loathing of Russia and all things Russian.

And now the one supposedly bright spot in this pit of abysmal darkness has flickered out, with Bernie Sanders, the Ron Paul of the Reds, jumping on the Russia-did-it bandwagon and cowering in the wake of Robert Mueller’s laughable “indictment,” in which the special prosecutor avers that $100,000 in Facebook ads were designed to throw the election to Trump – and to help Bernie!

Oh no, says Bernie, from his place of exile in the wilds of Vermont, where the Russians did not take over the electrical grid: It wasn’t me!

And this gem:

“I’ll tell you one thing: I would have colluded with the Klingon Empire to prevent Hillary and her band of authoritarian statists and warmongering nutcases from taking the White House. If only the Russians had intervened, they’d have been doing this country – and the world – a great service. Alas, there’s not one lick of solid evidence – forensic, documentary, witness testimony – that shows this. Which is what the Mueller investigation is all about: the Democrats are claiming there was interference, and Mueller is out to find corroboration. Except it’s been over a year and he’s come up with … nothing.”

Most of us probably take for granted the process that allows us to sample the food, music, and culture of the world, without having to travel all over the world.  I certainly take for granted the fact that I can enjoy upper-crust sushi complete with a decorative, flaming shot of Everclear in the evening, followed by a hole-in-the-wall diner the next morning.

“Cultural appropriation” is merely a smear of the wonderful process of cultural exchange that ineluctably occurs when people are given a modicum of liberty.  How would society look if cultural barriers were put up?  Would we be better or worse off if we could only participate in our own culture?

WSJ: FISA abuses are a special threat to privacy and due process.  The standard for obtaining an intelligence surveillance warrant is lower than that in a criminal investigation.

CNBC: Here are the 7 biggest things you missed about the Democratic memo on the Russia probe

CyberScoop: Case against alleged hoarder of NSA documents gets tougher for federal prosecutors

The Federalist: How to reform federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies

National Review: Broward County sheriff is everything that’s wrong with American authority

Reason: Trump wants to start executing drug dealers

High Times: NYPD facing criticism for racial disparity in marijuana arrests

Techdirt: Kansas legislature introduces two bills mandating speedy release of police body camera footage

Washington Examiner: The fight against extremism is turning into a fight against freedom

Cipher Brief: No Facebook or Twitter? You’re probably a spy

Gizmodo: US Air Force chief warns of space war “in a matter of years”

CNBC: This smartphone cuts off your camera and microphone so no spy agencies can watch you

Well+Good: Are psychedelic drugs about to become the new Prozac? Ed: We can only hope

BoingBoing: Surveillance-happy authoritarian “Democratic” California senator Dianne Feinstein loses endorsement of Democratic Party

The Hill: Is the Supreme Court set to establish major precedent in email privacy?

Reuters: Europe seeks power to seize overseas data in challenge to tech giants

TheAfricom: Apple to store iCloud cryptographic keys in China, raising privacy fears

Techdirt: Rancher sues CBP after officers install surveillance camera on his private property

WENDY MCELROY: Privacy is the virtue that sparked the American Revolution

The Federalist: Michael Flynn’s case could prove Democrats wrong about federal agencies’ court abuse

Also The Federalist: Florida sheriff Scott Israel needs to resign for incompetence

The real questions: Forbes: Why haven’t we bumped into another universe? 

Activist Post: Newly released documents proves secret surveillance court spying on innocent Americans

Daily Signal: Fired Google employee warns social media users about censored speech

TechCrunch: Congress should close loophole allowing warrantless digital car searches

NextGov: The city that remembers everything Ed: Euphemistically called the ‘smart city’, it’s really a total surveillance ecosystem that makes use of AI and data for “efficiency purposes”.  It is total, unbridled surveillance.

National Review: The Schiff memo harms Democrats more than it helps them

Reason: Florida Sheriff who received multiple tips on shooter won’t resign, says his leadership “has been amazing”

Zero Hedge: Florida governor orders investigation into Parkland shooting response

The Intercept: California Democrats deny Feinstein their endorsement for Senate

Reuters: Ecuador says mediation with Britain over Assange has failed

Smithsonian: Settles buried truth about the Midwest’s mysterious mound cities

The Guardian: Don’t worry about AI going bad, it’s the minds behind it that are the danger

Aeon: Algorithmic wilderness

Press Herald: Portland’s ‘smart city’ ambition has privacy risks, ACLU says

Unz: Russiagate: will every critic of our government policies soon be indictable?

AZCentral: Harder drugs, higher profits: US-Mexico border sees shift in the kinds of drugs seized

Time: 21 Red Cross staffers involved in sexual misconduct since 2015

Flashback: Rampant sexual abuse of poor populations at the hands of UN peacekeepers

LibertyLaw: The long war as permanent state of emergency

Marshall Project: A “death spiral” for police unions?

Green Market Report: MedMen becomes first marijuana ‘unicorn’

The emerging narrative of the Parkland aftermath is clear: greater gun control, and more cops in our schools.  These ideas are would be ineffective at best, and would succeed only in turning schools into prisons, and students into inmates.  But imagine the public funds it would take to pull off this type of domestic militarization, and it’s easy to see why so many powerful industries are rising in its support.

What our public schools need is the presence of members of private security, not more cowards hiding behind a badge, a union, and an “officers bill of rights”.  Protectors of our children should be ones who feel the ever-present fear of accountability, and of losing a paycheck.  After all, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest.  We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.”

A private security firm doesn’t have the time nor the endless stream of public funds at its disposal to paper over colossal blunders such as the ones committed by law enforcement at every stage leading up to Parkland.  They would almost certainly screen out the cowards in favor of the Frank Castles.

This won’t happen, but it should.  Schools need do need protection, what they don’t need is more government intervention.  I can’t imagine it would be that hard to hire a number of armed, professional guards from a private firm to patrol the school grounds.  There would be no need for far-reaching legislation, no “gun control”.

Nevertheless, it is clear that a narrative is being constructed that is already being wielded in favor of turning public schools into Police States in miniature, which means either more cops, or an expansion of the TSA into our kids’ lives.  More cops in schools mean more interactions between minorities and cops at a younger age.  Which means a greater probability of kids building a rap sheet much earlier in life. It also means conditioning children to accept the Police State they will become acquainted with when they emerge from these prisons as adults.  But it won’t keep them safe. Not from other students, but especially from the institution that will always remain the greatest and most immediate threat to their safety: the State itself.

Just a few thoughts from a caffeine-addled mind.

USA Today: Democratic memo alleges FBI began spying on Carter Page before receiving Steele dossier

The Federalist: Could the police legally do no wrong during the Parkland massacre?

Reason: Florida Gov. Rick Scott calls for more gun control, more cops in schools

Activist Post: Apparently the “solution” to mass shootings is to turn schools into prisons

Express: Funeral parlour looking for ‘volunteers’ for ‘Black Mirror’ project to create immortal AI

The Guardian: Worry less about the march of robots, more about techno panic

CNN: How biometrics is giving identities to ‘invisible citizens’

MintPressNews: Coke, Nestle to privatize world’s second largest aquifer in Brazil

NZ Herald: New series details intelligence failures that led to 9/11

High Times: These 12 states could pass marijuana laws this year

Forbes: If the universe is 13.8 billion years old, how can we see 46 billion light years away?

Discover: Chemists forge custom molecules upon ‘diamond anvils’

NatGeo: Antarctic ice study finds freezing, not melting