Spyvate Sector and your older brother

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Total information awareness depresses me, as the people doing the data mining will be the same morons you and I went to high school with. Some of the miners will have loyalties to secretive organizations that would rather that you or I STFU. Some will simply be small minded, vindictive jerks.



That creepy logo is the official seal of the US Information Awareness Office. The motto: "SCIENTIA EST POTENTIA," or "Knowledge is Power Control."

Two stories I can't tell: One involves FBI agents appearing at a friend's door on the basis of a few phrases in some emails. That was a couple of years ago. The other event was recent but its details are ambiguous indicators of surveillance at best.

Speaking of occult organizations that like to shut people up, it's worth noting that the Church of Strong Believers (CSB) has been at war with the Internet since the mid-1990s. Essentially, the CSB wants the ability to pull up everything about you at will, particularly if you say something unflattering about it.

Many CSB sympathizers are among the leadership of prominent Internet companies. Examples include the former Warner Bros head and Tom Cruise producer Terr y Se mel, who had been the CEO of Yahoo! until June '07 then was chairmen until January '08; and Sk y Da yton who ran Earth link and now is chairman of Hel io (Yes, I know. Spacing tricks don't fool Carnivore. Just messing with Google search).

I expect that most snoops and spies that infiltrate Internet businesses are middle managers and worker drones, not top executives who require plausible deniability. But executives play a role. They can influence, directly or indirectly, who gets hired, which incidents and departments are scrutinized closely, and who might occasionally be allowed greater access to sensitive information.