Orwellian Cyber Surveillance?

George Orwell warned us about doublethink, the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. He warned us of newspeak, designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.  And he warned of never ending global wars and universal surveillance.  Although he was off by a few decades, his predictions appear to be unfolding as constitutionally protected forms of political opposition including speech, the written word, and the right to assemble could fall under the broad definition of terrorism.

Here's one example of  the universal surveillance Orwell spoke of. The Obama Administration is currently pushing a legislative proposal that will require "Internet-based communications providers to support wiretap capabilities in their products." They want to "add just four words -- "electronic communication transactional records" -- to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge's approval"  In other words, the Obama Administration wants to wiretap the Internet.

Three of the proposed requirements:

• Communications services that encrypt messages must have a way to unscramble them.
• Foreign providers that do business inside the United States must establish a domestic office capable of performing intercepts.
• Developers of software that enables peer-to-peer communication must redesign their services to allow interception.

However, the proposed Internet wiretapping law may be fundamentally incompatible with security.

One more Orwellian example:  the Office of the Director of National Intelligence appears to be on the verge of prevailing in an attempt to put some information it receives from other intelligence agencies beyond the reach of Freedom of Information Act requests.

Links:

Electronic Police State -- every surveillance camera recording, every email sent, every Internet site surfed, every post made, every check written, every credit card swipe, every cell phone ping… are all criminal evidence, and all are held in searchable databases. The individual can be prosecuted whenever the government wishes.

Unclassified Report on the President's Surveillance Program

President's Surveillance Program In the weeks following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the President authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct a classified program to detect and prevent further attacks in the United States. As part of the NSA's classified program, several different intelligence activities were authorized in Presidential Authorizations, and the details of these activities changed over time. The program was reauthorized by the President approximately every 45 days, with certain modifications. Collectively, the activities carried out under these Authorizations are referred to as the "President's Surveillance Program" or "PSP."

The Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative

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Founding Fathers Sanction Open Source Society

No, the Founding Fathers have not come back to life - although if they did, they wouldn't last long after witnessing what's left of the Constitution - however, their writings and example send a clear message on the topic of "open access".

Some proprietary companies claim and will continue to claim that open source or open access is communist or anti-American. The Founding Fathers would have claimed the opposite, as they had definite opinions on the free flow of information and remained very skeptical about copyright laws. They would cringe at the idea of extending copyright as we do today, as it creates monopolies and offers no public benefit. Consider the greatest inventor of all time, Benjamin Franklin, who never patented a thing he invented.

Almost 240 years ago, a good friend of Ben Franklin, Joseph Priestly, illustrates this point further. Primarily famous for figuring out that plants create "good air" therefore replacing the air animals consume, Priestly proved to be revolutionary in more fields than one - in particular, science, religion, and politics - and far more influential than he was given credit.

According to Steven Johnson, author of "The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America" Priestly is "the missing philosophical link between our founding fathers." Priestly greatly influenced the Founding Fathers including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, who Priestley wrote to after his discovery of "good air" and with whom he had a collaborative and intellectual relationship.

"That the vegetable creation should restore the air which is spoiled by the animal part of it, looks like a rational system." -- Ben Franklin responding to Priestly

Years later, after Priestly accepted a job as a minister, he moved into a temporary residence adjacent to a brewery, to await the house he was supposed to move. While there, he noticed a haze coming off the brewing beer and upon further investigation, discovered carbonation, hence his discovery of soda water. He immediately published the recipe for his new invention without thought to profit, as Steve Johnson writes, "The idea of proprietary secrets, of withholding information for personal gain, was unimaginable in that group." Of course, years later, in 1783, Johann Schweppe patented the process, which continues to provide "personal gain" through today.

Ben Franklin said the following regarding the subject of open access after he invented the Franklin stove:

I wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled "An Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces; wherein their Construction and Manner of Operation is particularly explained; their Advantages above every other Method of warming Rooms demonstrated; and all Objections that have been raised against the Use of them answered and obviated," etc. This pamphlet had a good effect. Gov'r. Thomas was so pleas'd with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin'd it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously. -- Ben Franklin

The idea behind the Founding Father's thinking was that the free flow of ideas and information foster the growth of original thought, and as Ben Franklin said, attract the attention of genius who can improve upon and solve problems half understood.

Fast forward to the last Presidential campaign. Obama used open source software and McCain used proprietary software. With proprietary, society gets the soda water, and with open source or open access, society gets soda water and the recipe for the soda water. President-elect Obama's tech agenda seems to support the latter. His choice of Julius Genachowski to chair the FCC is at the very least, an improvement. So, even though the first stab at a Broadband Bill is disappointing, it appears that net neutrality, open source and a more level playing field just might have a chance.

"We can’t allow a system of gatekeepers to get built into the network. The Internet shouldn’t be harnessed for the profit of a few, rather than the good of the many; value should come from the quality of information, not the control of access to it." -- Damian Kulash Jr. lead singer of OK Go

Some Open Source links:

Open sustainability camp

Open source car

Open source comes to medical instruments.

Software industry vs. software society

Open Democracy - aims to build the open source model for news analysis and opinion

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Browser Racism?

Blackbird is a web browser for the African American community, developed by a group of African American entrepreneurs, under the direction of Ed Young, CEO of Blackbird. At face value, it is a regular browser, however, intrinsic to its creation, just two or three clicks away, the user can access expanded content that is targeted toward the black community, not easily found elsewhere.

Rather than segregating black content, this browser pulls out black focused information, into the web, bringing it to the forefront. This information could be found in a GOOGLE search, however, it may show up as result number 17,100,000. In other words, this browser sorts the information differently than Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari.

White Bird was created in response to the Blackbird project. Of course, by default, all popular downloaded browsers are "whitebirds", making the creation of White Bird nothing more than a spoof.

White Bird was developed on the simple proposition that we, as the White American community, can make the Internet experience better for ourselves and, in doing so, make it better for everyone. Primarily we believe that the White Bird application can make it easier to find White American related content on the Internet and to interact with other members of the White American community online by sharing stories, news, comments and videos via White Bird.

So, is the Blackbird browser racist? Is the White Bird browser racist?

First, we should define racism. If we define racism as hatred or intolerance of another race or the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races...Blackbird does not qualify. Nor does it segregate, as it only rearranges information...it does not take away information. The user is also given the choice (radio button) to use it as a "regular" browser.

Second, Blackbird affords a certain part of our population the opportunity to obtain information the same way the majority does - leveling the playing field, in a sense - therefore, if anything, Blackbird counters an intrinsic "racism", that is almost impossible to eliminate because it is generated by demographics, and is not the result of malicious intent.

The White Bird browser, on the other hand, might be a tad "racist". That is, if it does not allow the user to include results other than "whitebird", especially considering "whitebird" browsers are a dime a dozen. Other than providing a little amusement, White Bird serves no purpose, as - like I said before - all browsers are "whitebird".

In conclusion, the Blackbird browser is not racist at all and despite what I said before, I believe White Bird is not racist either...just useless or funny, depending on your perspective.

Jay Smooth, host of NY's WBAI's Underground Railroad, and founder of one of the first hip-hop websites, hiphopmusic.com does a very good job clarifying racism, including how best to respond to it.

"I don't care what you are; I care what you did." - Jay Smooth

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