“
When I look out [the window] at the big houses on either side of the road, it's obvious we've entered the rich side of town. Poor people don't post signs like NO TRESPASSING, PRIVATE DRIVE, PRIVATE PROPERTY, MONITORED BY CAMERA SURVEILLANCE. I should know because I've been poor my entire life, and the only person I know who ever posted a sign like these is my friend...and he actually stole the sign off a rich guy's yard.
”
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Simone Elkeles (Rules of Attraction (Perfect Chemistry, #2))
“
A reminder that Goodreads is owned by Amazon, and everything you do here supports Big Data and corporate surveillance. You should be concerned, especially if you read books about liberation.
A friend recommended StoryGraph, a Black-owned independent alternative.
Download your data and GTFO.
”
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Anonymous
“
No one stepping for the first time into a room made of books can know instinctively how to behave, what is expected, what is promised, what is allowed. One may be overcome by horror--at the cluster or the vastness, the stillness, the mocking reminder of everything one doesn't know, the surveillance--and some of that overwhelming feeling may cling on, even after the rituals and conventions are learned, the geography mapped, and the natives found friendly.
”
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Alberto Manguel (The Library at Night)
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Each day, at the same time, Jude would return and they would be there, led by Webb, whose life could not have been more different than his. Where Webb's memories of childhood were idyllic and earthy, Jude's reeked of indifference. Webb read fantasy; Jude read realism. Webb believed a tree house was the perfect place for gaining a different perspective on the world; Jude saw it as perfect for surveillance and working out who or what was a threat to them. They argued about sport codes and song lyrics. Jude saw the rain-dirty valley; Webb saw Brigadoon. Yet, despite all this, they connected, and the nights they spent in the tree house discussing their brave new worlds and not so brave emotions made everything else in their lives insignificant. Somehow the world of Webb and Fitz and Tate and Narnie became the focus of Jude's life.
”
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Melina Marchetta (On the Jellicoe Road)
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If we are to violate the Constitution, will the people submit to our unauthorized acts? Sir, they ought not to submit; they would deserve the chains that these measures are forging for them. The country will swarm with informers, spies, delators and all the odious reptile tribe that breed in the sunshine of a despotic power ... [T]he hours of the most unsuspected confidence, the intimacies of friendship, or the recesses of domestic retirement afford no security. The companion whom you most trust, the friend in whom you must confide, the domestic who waits in your chamber, all are tempted to betray your imprudent or unguarded follie; to misrepresent your words; to convey them, distorted by calumny, to the secret tribunal where jealousy presides — where fear officiates as accuser and suspicion is the only evidence that is heard ... Do not let us be told, Sir, that we excite a fervour against foreign aggression only to establish a tyranny at home; that [...] we are absurd enough to call ourselves ‘free and enlightened’ while we advocate principles that would have disgraced the age of Gothic barbarity and establish a code compared to which the ordeal is wise and the trial by battle is merciful and just."
[opposing the Alien & Sedition bills of 1798, in Congress]
”
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Edward Livingston
“
Post-9/11 surveillance has caused writers to self-censor. They avoid writing about and researching certain subjects; they’re careful about communicating with sources, colleagues, or friends abroad.
”
”
Bruce Schneier (Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World)
“
in such moments I have formulated my creed, wherein all is clear and holy to me. This creed is extremely simple; here it is: I believe that there is nothing lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic, more rational, more manly, and more perfect than the Saviour; I say to myself with jealous love that not only is there no one else like Him, but that there could be no one. I would even say more: If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth. I would rather not say anything more about it. And yet I don't know why certain topics may never be touched on in society, and why, if anyone does introduce them, it makes the others uncomfortable. Still, enough of it. I heard that you were desirous of travelling somewhere in the South. God grant that you may succeed in obtaining permission to do so. But will you please tell me when we shall be quite free, or at any rate as free as other people ? Perhaps only when we no longer need freedom ? For my part, I want all or nothing. In my soldier's uniform I am the same prisoner as before. I rejoice greatly that I find there is patience in my soul for quite a long time yet, that I desire no earthly possessions, and need nothing but books, the possibility of writing, and of being daily for a few hours alone. The last troubles me most. For almost five years I have been constantly under surveillance, or with several other people, and not one hour alone with myself. To be alone is a natural need, like eating and drinking ; for in that kind of concentrated communism one becomes a whole-hearted enemy of mankind. The constant companionship of others works like poison or plague; and from that unendurable martyrdom I most suffered in the last four years. There were moments in which I hated every man, whether good or evil, and regarded him as a thief who, unpunished, was robbing me of life. The most unbearable part is when one grows unjust, malignant, and evil, is aware of it, even reproves one's-self, and yet has not the power to control one's-self. I have experienced that. I am convinced that God will keep you from it. I believe that you, as a woman, have more power to forgive and to endure. Do
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoyevsky to his family and friends)
“
If you expose what it is that we’re doing, if you inform your fellow citizens about all the things that we’re doing in the dark, we will destroy you. This is what their spate of prosecutions of whistleblowers have [sic] been about. It’s what trying to threaten journalists, to criminalize what they do, is about. It’s to create a climate of fear, so that nobody will bring accountability to them.
It’s not going to work. I think it’s starting to backfire, because it shows their true character and exactly why they can’t be trusted to operate with power in secret. And we’re certainly not going to be deterred by it in any way. The people who are going to be investigated are not the people reporting on this, but are people like Dianne Feinstein and her friends in the National Security Agency, who need investigation and transparency for all the things that they’ve been doing.
”
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Glenn Greenwald
“
She wanted to tell him everything: that her worst fears had come true, that her husband had managed to place a surveillance device into her mind, the whole story. But she didn't want to seem crazy. This was shitty because the truth was crazy, not her. There had been a tagline of a TV show, 'The truth is out there,' that Hazel had initially misinterpreted and felt comforted by. 'That is for sure!' she'd thought, the truth was the most far-out thing possible. Hazel had always felt this--when she learned about periods and sex, when she learned about death, when she learned about the impossible living conditions of the other planets in the solar system and the manufacturing of processed meats. Almost always, the truth was way more bizarre and gross than she would've imagined. Then one night she commented on this to a friend and was told, 'No, dumbass, the show is saying that the truth will be discovered. Like how aliens are real and the U.S. government knows it.
”
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Alissa Nutting (Made for Love)
“
I guess you’ll just have to get used to having a police car outside the grocery store, the gym, and wherever it is you go for lunch with your friends,” Jack lectured. “And this goes without saying: you need to be careful. The police surveillance is a precautionary measure, but they can’t be everywhere. You should stick to familiar surroundings, and be vigilant and alert at all times.”
“I got it. No walking through dark alleys while talking on my cell phone, no running at night with my iPod, no checking out suspicious noises in the basement.”
“I seriously hope you’re not doing any of those things anyway.”
“Of course not.”
Jack pinned her with his gaze.
She shifted against the counter. “Okay, maybe, sometimes, I’ve been known to listen to a Black Eyed Peas song or two while running at night. They get me moving after a long day at work.”
Jack seemed wholly unimpressed with this excuse. “Well, you and the Peas better get used to running indoors on a treadmill.”
Conscious of Wilkins’s presence, and the fact that he was watching her and Jack with what appeared to be amusement, Cameron bit back her retort.
Thirty thousand hotel rooms in the city of Chicago and she picked the one that would lead her back to him.
”
”
Julie James (Something About You (FBI/US Attorney, #1))
“
As should be obvious by now, surveillance is the business model of the Internet. You create “free” accounts on Web sites such as Snapchat, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and PatientsLikeMe and download free apps like Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga, Words with Friends, and Fruit Ninja, and in return you, wittingly or not, agree to allow these companies to track all your moves, aggregate them, correlate them, and sell them to as many people as possible at the highest price, unencumbered by regulation, decency, or ethical limitation. Yet so few stop and ask who else has access to all these data detritus and how it might be used against us. Dataveillance is the “new black,” and its uses, capabilities, and powers are about to mushroom in ways few consumers, governments, or technologists might have imagined.
”
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Marc Goodman (Future Crimes)
“
this change has been a conscious choice, the result of a systematic effort on the part of a privileged few. The early rush to turn commerce into e-commerce quickly led to a bubble, and then, just after the turn of the millennium, to a collapse. After that, companies realized that people who went online were far less interested in spending than in sharing, and that the human connection the Internet made possible could be monetized. If most of what people wanted to do online was to be able to tell their family, friends, and strangers what they were up to, and to be told what their family, friends, and strangers were up to in return, then all companies had to do was figure out how to put themselves in the middle of those social exchanges and turn them into profit. This was the beginning of surveillance capitalism, and the end of the Internet as I knew it.
”
”
Edward Snowden (Permanent Record)
“
It is well-known that a big percentage of all marriages in the United States end in divorce or separation (about 39 percent, according to the latest data).[30] But staying together is not what really counts. Analysis of the Harvard Study data shows that marriage per se accounts for only 2 percent of subjective well-being later in life.[31] The important thing for health and well-being is relationship satisfaction. Popular culture would have you believe the secret to this satisfaction is romantic passion, but that is wrong. On the contrary, a lot of unhappiness can attend the early stages of romance. For example, researchers find that it is often accompanied by rumination, jealousy, and “surveillance behaviors”—not what we typically associate with happiness. Furthermore, “destiny beliefs” about soul mates or love being meant to be can predict low forgiveness when paired with attachment anxiety.[32] Romance often hijacks our brains in a way that can cause the highs of elation or the depths of despair.[33] You might accurately say that falling in love is the start-up cost for happiness—an exhilarating but stressful stage we have to endure to get to the relationships that actually fulfill us. The secret to happiness isn’t falling in love; it’s staying in love, which depends on what psychologists call “companionate love”—love based less on passionate highs and lows and more on stable affection, mutual understanding, and commitment.[34] You might think “companionate love” sounds a little, well, disappointing. I certainly did the first time I heard it, on the heels of great efforts to win my future wife’s love. But over the past thirty years, it turns out that we don’t just love each other; we like each other, too. Once and always my romantic love, she is also my best friend.
”
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Arthur C. Brooks (From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life)
“
1) The woman has intuitive feelings that she is at risk. 2) At the inception of the relationship, the man accelerated the pace, prematurely placing on the agenda such things as commitment, living together, and marriage. 3) He resolves conflict with intimidation, bullying, and violence. 4) He is verbally abusive. 5) He uses threats and intimidation as instruments of control or abuse. This includes threats to harm physically, to defame, to embarrass, to restrict freedom, to disclose secrets, to cut off support, to abandon, and to commit suicide. 6) He breaks or strikes things in anger. He uses symbolic violence (tearing a wedding photo, marring a face in a photo, etc.). 7) He has battered in prior relationships. 8) He uses alcohol or drugs with adverse affects (memory loss, hostility, cruelty). 9) He cites alcohol or drugs as an excuse or explanation for hostile or violent conduct (“That was the booze talking, not me; I got so drunk I was crazy”). 10) His history includes police encounters for behavioral offenses (threats, stalking, assault, battery). 11) There has been more than one incident of violent behavior (including vandalism, breaking things, throwing things). 12) He uses money to control the activities, purchase, and behavior of his wife/partner. 13) He becomes jealous of anyone or anything that takes her time away from the relationship; he keeps her on a “tight leash,” requires her to account for her time. 14) He refuses to accept rejection. 15) He expects the relationship to go on forever, perhaps using phrases like “together for life;” “always;” “no matter what.” 16) He projects extreme emotions onto others (hate, love, jealousy, commitment) even when there is no evidence that would lead a reasonable person to perceive them. 17) He minimizes incidents of abuse. 18) He spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about his wife/partner and derives much of his identity from being her husband, lover, etc. 19) He tries to enlist his wife’s friends or relatives in a campaign to keep or recover the relationship. 20) He has inappropriately surveilled or followed his wife/partner. 21) He believes others are out to get him. He believes that those around his wife/partner dislike him and encourage her to leave. 22) He resists change and is described as inflexible, unwilling to compromise. 23) He identifies with or compares himself to violent people in films, news stories, fiction, or history. He characterizes the violence of others as justified. 24) He suffers mood swings or is sullen, angry, or depressed. 25) He consistently blames others for problems of his own making; he refuses to take responsibility for the results of his actions. 26) He refers to weapons as instruments of power, control, or revenge. 27) Weapons are a substantial part of his persona; he has a gun or he talks about, jokes about, reads about, or collects weapons. 28) He uses “male privilege” as a justification for his conduct (treats her like a servant, makes all the big decisions, acts like the “master of the house”). 29) He experienced or witnessed violence as a child. 30) His wife/partner fears he will injure or kill her. She has discussed this with others or has made plans to be carried out in the event of her death (e.g., designating someone to care for children).
”
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Gavin de Becker (The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence)
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Post-9/11 surveillance has caused writers to self-censor. They avoid writing about and researching certain subjects; they’re careful about communicating with sources, colleagues, or friends abroad. A Pew Research Center study conducted just after the first Snowden articles were published found that people didn’t want to talk about the NSA online. A broader Harris poll found that nearly half of Americans have changed what they research, talk about, and write about because of NSA surveillance.
”
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Bruce Schneier (Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World)
“
A friend once told me a story about a former Black Panther leader in a Midwest community who in the 1960s had his phone tapped, while federal agents followed him everywhere. Forced to go underground, he later entered the drug trade & eventually got good at it. However, he told my friend, soon after this nobody kept tabs on him--he wasn't followed or harassed. He later became the number one drug dealer in the area. As he said this, my friend noted a breaking in his voice; the pain, perhaps, of being pushed away from being a committed community activist.
”
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Luis J. Rodríguez (Hearts and Hands: Creating Community in Violent Times)
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I think back to that moment and I realize that I’m still here because of my mother. Of course that’s who I have to thank, and I never thanked her for it. She’s the one who kept a lid on all of this, who parried me away from the path that led to delinquency, danger, and violence, to the needle, that lethal delight called heroin that killed my three closest friends. Petey, Cliffy, Bruce—they all died from drugs. I was not exactly under strict surveillance, but my mother paid attention to where I was in a way that my friends’ families didn’t, and we all knew it. I believe she saved my life.
”
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Al Pacino (Sonny Boy)
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There’s a reason for the mainstream bipartisan consensus around community policing: it maintains and expands the status quo. As advocates call for fewer police and less policing and criminalization, community policing becomes a way to reshape the narrative to position police as friendly beat cops who know everyone’s name. But community policing doesn’t make policing more effective, less hostile, or more accountable to the communities they serve in. Instead it allows police to further entrench their presence in neighborhoods, justify increases in their numbers, and even mobilize community members to participate in policing by surveilling our neighbors.
”
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Maya Schenwar (Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms)
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Michael Fertik took me for dinner and talked to me about the criticism people often level at him, that ‘any change of search results is manipulating truth and chilling free speech’. He drank some wine. ‘But there is a chilling of behaviour that goes along with a virtual lynching. There is a life modification.’ ‘I know,’ I said. ‘For a year Lindsey Stone had felt too plagued to even go to karaoke.’ And karaoke is something you do alone in a room with your friends. ‘And that’s not an unusual reaction,’ Michael said. ‘People change their phone numbers. They don’t leave the house. They go into therapy. They have signs of PTSD. It’s like the Stasi. We’re creating a culture where people feel constantly surveilled, where people are afraid to be themselves.
”
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Jon Ronson (So You've Been Publicly Shamed (Picador Collection))
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The first break in the case came on day six. A college student named Beatrice Arnold called the FBI hotline to report she’d sold Suzanne Lombard snacks at the gas station where she worked in Breezewood, Pennsylvania. “The Breezewood tape caused a seismic shift in the investigation and completely scrambled the assumptions of law enforcement. Suzanne Lombard hadn’t been snatched; she had run away. She had somehow traveled three hundred fifty miles from the Virginia shore to the Pennsylvania line without drawing attention to herself. From the surveillance tape, three unassailable facts emerged: First, Suzanne was actively trying to conceal her identity. Second, she was waiting for someone. And third, in Suzanne’s mind at least, that someone was a friend.
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Matthew FitzSimmons (The Short Drop (Gibson Vaughn, #1))
“
For many, Facebook is less about looking up friends than it is about looking at friends. Research tells us that, on average, Facebook users spend more time examining others’ pages than adding content to their own. The site’s most frequent visitors—most often females who post and share photos and who receive status updates—use the site for “social surveillance.” These social investigators usually aren’t getting in touch or staying in touch with friends as much as they are checking up on them. And my clients are right: Judging and evaluating are involved. In one study, nearly four hundred participants examined mock-up Facebook pages and rated web-page owners for attractiveness, only to decide that the best-looking owners were the ones with the best-looking friends.
”
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Meg Jay (The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now)
“
Or when you keep a sex-addiction meeting under surveillance because they’re the best places to pick up chicks.” Serge looked around the room at suspicious eyes. “Okay, maybe that last one’s just me. But you should try it. They keep the men’s and women’s meetings separate for obvious reasons. And there are so many more opportunities today because the whole country’s wallowing in this whiny new sex-rehab craze after some golfer diddled every pancake waitress on the seaboard. That’s not a disease; that’s cheating. He should have been sent to confession or marriage counseling after his wife finished chasing him around Orlando with a pitching wedge. But today, the nation is into humiliation, tearing down a lifetime of achievement by labeling some guy a damaged little dick weasel. The upside is the meetings. So what you do is wait on the sidewalk for the women to get out, pretending like you’re loitering. And because of the nature of the sessions they just left, there’s no need for idle chatter or lame pickup lines. You get right to business: ‘What’s your hang-up?’ And she answers, and you say, ‘What a coincidence. Me, too.’ Then, hang on to your hat! It’s like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get. Most people are aware of the obvious, like foot fetish or leather. But there are more than five hundred lesser-known but clinically documented paraphilia that make no sexual sense. Those are my favorites . . .” Serge began counting off on his fingers. “This one woman had Ursusagalmatophilia, which meant she got off on teddy bears—that was easily my weirdest three-way. And nasophilia, which meant she was completely into my nose, and she phoned a friend with mucophilia, which is mucus. The details on that one are a little disgusting. And formicophilia, which is being crawled on by insects, so the babe bought an ant farm. And symphorophilia—that’s staging car accidents, which means you have to time the air bags perfectly
”
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Tim Dorsey (Pineapple Grenade (Serge Storms #15))
“
The word “collect” has a very special definition, according to the Department of Defense. It doesn’t mean collect; it means that a person looks at, or analyzes, the data. In 2013, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper likened the NSA’s trove of accumulated data to a library. All those books are stored on the shelves, but very few are actually read. “So the task for us in the interest of preserving security and preserving civil liberties and privacy is to be as precise as we possibly can be when we go in that library and look for the books that we need to open up and actually read.” Think of that friend of yours who has thousands of books in his house. According to this ridiculous definition, the only books he can claim to have collected are the ones he’s read. This is why Clapper asserts he didn’t lie in a Senate hearing when he replied “no” to the question “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” From the military’s perspective, it’s not surveillance until a human being looks at the data, even if algorithms developed and implemented by defense personnel or contractors have analyzed it many times over.
”
”
Bruce Schneier (Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World)
“
The demand to be intimate or honest with a public can be invasive when the experiences of racial others are commodified as stories or objects that might be traded as evidence of intimacy, as proof of 'being good,' for nonracial others. In this way, intimacy might act as surveillance, through which some people--women of color, for instance--must reveal themselves to bear the burden of representation ('You are here as an example') and the weight of pedagogy ('Teach us about your people'). Intimacy can be a force--especially when others set its terms and conditions. So what if you don't love the (white) girls who exhaust you, who want too much from you, who want to turn you into a commodity or a badge or an experience to share? What if you become a girl in opposition to other girls?
This is also the problem with definitions of racism as ignorance, and ignorance as the absence of intimacy--which posits that intimacy is the solution to ignorance. This gives us terrible, stupid disavowals like 'I'm not racist, I have black friends,' as if intimacy is a shield that protects the wearer from harm. It limits our sense of what racism is to the scale of the interpersonal, when it is in fact this enormous constellation of forces and moving parts that structures our institutions--and so-called institutions--profoundly.
”
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Mimi Thi Nguyen
“
GCHQ has traveled a long and winding road. That road stretches from the wooden huts of Bletchley Park, past the domes and dishes of the Cold War, and on towards what some suggest will be the omniscient state of the Brave New World. As we look to the future, the docile and passive state described by Aldous Huxley in his Brave New World is perhaps more appropriate analogy than the strictly totalitarian predictions offered by George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Bizarrely, many British citizens are quite content in this new climate of hyper-surveillance, since its their own lifestyle choices that helped to create 'wired world' - or even wish for it, for as we have seen, the new torrents of data have been been a source of endless trouble for the overstretched secret agencies. As Ken Macdonald rightly points out, the real drives of our wired world have been private companies looking for growth, and private individuals in search of luxury and convenience at the click of a mouse. The sigint agencies have merely been handed the impossible task of making an interconnected society perfectly secure and risk-free, against the background of a globalized world that presents many unprecedented threats, and now has a few boundaries or borders to protect us. Who, then, is to blame for the rapid intensification of electronic surveillance? Instinctively, many might reply Osama bin Laden, or perhaps Pablo Escobar. Others might respond that governments have used these villains as a convenient excuse to extend state control. At first glance, the massive growth of security, which includes includes not only eavesdropping but also biometric monitoring, face recognition, universal fingerprinting and the gathering of DNA, looks like a sad response to new kinds of miscreants. However, the sad reality is that the Brave New World that looms ahead of us is ultimately a reflection of ourselves. It is driven by technologies such as text messaging and customer loyalty cards that are free to accept or reject as we choose. The public debate on surveillance is often cast in terms of a trade-off between security and privacy. The truth is that luxury and convenience have been pre-eminent themes in the last decade, and we have given them a much higher priority than either security or privacy. We have all been embraced the world of surveillance with remarkable eagerness, surfing the Internet in a global search for a better bargain, better friends, even a better partner.
GCHQ vast new circular headquarters is sometimes represented as a 'ring of power', exercising unparalleled levels of surveillance over citizens at home and abroad, collecting every email, every telephone and every instance of internet acces. It has even been asserted that GCHQ is engaged in nothing short of 'algorithmic warfare' as part of a battle for control of global communications. By contrast, the occupants of 'Celtenham's Doughnut' claim that in reality they are increasingly weak, having been left behind by the unstoppable electronic communications that they cannot hope to listen to, still less analyse or make sense of. In fact, the frightening truth is that no one is in control. No person, no intelligence agency and no government is steering the accelerating electronic processes that may eventually enslave us. Most of the devices that cause us to leave a continual digital trail of everything we think or do were not devised by the state, but are merely symptoms of modernity. GCHQ is simply a vast mirror, and it reflects the spirit of the age.
”
”
Richard J. Aldrich (GCHQ)
“
Cara sits behind me, and Peter and Caleb move toward the back of the plane and sit near each other, next to the window. I didn’t know they were friends. It seems fitting, given how despicable they both are.
“How old is this thing?” I ask Zoe, who stands near the front.
“Pretty old,” she says. “But we’ve completely redone the important stuff. It’s a nice size for what we need.”
“What do you use it for?”
“Surveillance missions, mostly. We like to keep an eye on what’s happening in the fringe, in case it threatens what’s happening in here.” Zoe pauses. “The fringe is a large, sort of chaotic place between Chicago and the nearest government-regulated metropolitan area, Milwaukee, which is about a three-hour drive from here.”
I would like to ask what exactly is happening in the fringe, but Uriah and Christina sit in the seats next to me, and the moment is lost. Uriah puts an armrest down between us and leans over me to look out the window.
“If the Dauntless knew about this, everyone would be getting in line to learn how to drive it,” he says. “Including me.”
“No, they would be strapping themselves to the wings.” Christina pokes his arm. “Don’t you know your own faction?”
Uriah pokes her cheek in response, then turns back to the window again.
“Have either of you seen Tobias lately?” I say.
“No, haven’t seen him,” Christina says. “Everything okay?”
Before I can answer, an older woman with lines around her mouth stands in the aisle between the rows of seats and claps her hands.
“My name is Karen, and I’ll be flying this plane today!” she announces. “It may seem frightening, but remember: The odds of us crashing are actually much lower than the odds of a car crash.”
“So are the odds of survival if we do crash,” Uriah mutters, but he’s grinning. His dark eyes are alert, and he looks giddy, like a child. I haven’t seen him this way since Marlene died. He’s handsome again.
”
”
Veronica Roth (Allegiant (Divergent, #3))
“
Everywhere power has to be seen in order to give the impression that it sees. But this is not the case. It doesn't see anything. It is like a woman walled up in a 'peepshow'. It is separated from society by a two-way mirror. And it turns slowly, undresses slowly, adopting the lewdest poses, little suspecting that the other is watching and masturbating in secret.
The metro. A man gets on - by his glances, gestures and movements, he carves out a space for himself and protects it. From that space, he sets his actions to those of the neighbouring, approximate molecules. He becomes the centre of a physical pressure, sniffs out hostile vibrations and emanations, or friendly ones, on the verge of panic. He joins up with others out of fear. He innervates his whole body with a calculated indifference, wraps himself in a superficial reverie, created only to keep others at a distance. He deciphers nothing, protects himself from the crossfire of everyone's gazes and sets his own as a backhand down the line, staring at a particular face at the back of the carriage until the very lightness of his stare stirs the other in his sleep. When the train accelerates or brakes, all the bodies are thrown in the same direction, like the shoals of fish which change direction simultaneously. The marvellous underwater lethargy of the metro, the self-defence of the capillary systems, the cruel play of vague thoughts - all while waiting for the stop at Faidherbe-Chaligny.
The crucial thing is not to have sweeping views of the future, but to know where to plant your primal scene. The danger for us is that we'll keep running up against the wall of the Revolution. For this is the source of our misery: our phobias, our prohibitions, our phantasies, our utopias are imbedded in the nineteenth century, where their foundations were laid down. We have to put an end to this historical coagulation. Beyond it, all is permitted. It will perhaps be the adventure of the end of the century to dissolve the wall of the Revolution and to plunge on beyond it, towards the marvels of form and spirit.
”
”
Jean Baudrillard (Cool Memories)
“
This isn’t weird for you, Mark? I mean, not even a little bit?” Green questioned. “Why? Is it for you?” Ruxs inquired, slightly nervous. “No. Not at all. I’ve thought of a million sexual things I could do to you and what I wanted you to do to me. But that’s because I’m bi. You on the other hand, have never been with a man. Now you just had your finger in my ass. I’m just wondering. You’re not the slightest bit weirded out.” Ruxs thought for a second. He stared into those smoky eyes and knew exactly why he wasn’t weirded out. Green was his friend, his best friend. The only person he had, his family. Nothing about them coming together was weird for him. Ruxs was a man who always did his own thing. He wasn’t judgmental and he didn’t worry about labels or societal conformity. If it felt good, then it was all good. He’d lived by that motto since college. Ruxs finally shook his head no. “I feel good about this. You and I being together this way is only strange in a good way. It’s wild to be able to finally touch you like I’ve been wanting too. To see you come, to watch you get off. I’m just trying to wrap my head around you wanting me.” Ruxs had a hard time meeting Green’s eyes. He hoped like hell that Green did want him. Green cupped his jaw and turned him so he was facing him. “I do want you. More than you think. I want you because you’re an amazing man, Mark Ruxsberg. You have to stop thinkin’ otherwise. You’re smart, caring, loyal, a damn good cop, you’re great to Curtis and…” Green tilted his still half-hard cock against Ruxs’ pelvis. “You’re sexy as fuck. Big and beautiful. Muscles all over the fuckin’ place. It’s a huge turn-on for me.” Ruxs blushed. He loved Green telling him this. Most of all he believed him. Green wasn’t a liar and he didn’t do anything that he didn’t want to do… just like him. “So no more of this self-doubting shit. Or else I won’t blow you anymore.” Green winked, rolling off of him and climbed out of the messy bed. “Now get your lazy ass up, and don’t worry about the sheets, the maid comes today. We got to get going. We’re supposed to be doing surveillance on that damn warehouse.” Ruxs
”
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A.E. Via (Here Comes Trouble (Nothing Special #3))
“
I surface from the simulation with a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I detach from the wires and get up. She’s still recovering from the sensation of almost drowning, shaking her hands and taking deep breaths. I watch her for a moment, not sure how to say what I need to say.
“What?” she says.
“How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Crack the glass.”
“I don’t know.”
I nod, and offer her my hand. She gets up without any trouble, but she avoids my eyes. I check the corners of the room for cameras. There is one, just where I thought it would be, right across from us. I take her elbow and lead her out of the room, to a place where I know we won’t be observed, in the blind spot between two surveillance points.
“What?” she says irritably.
“You’re Divergent,” I say. I haven’t been very nice to her today. Last night I saw her and her friends by the chasm, and a lapse in judgment--or sobriety--led me to lean in too close, to tell her she looked good. I’m worried that I went too far. Now I’m even more worried, but for different reasons.
She cracked the glass. She’s Divergent. She’s in danger.
She stares.
Then she sinks against the wall, adopting an almost-convincing aura of casualness. “What’s Divergent?”
“Don’t play stupid,” I say. “I suspected it last time, but this time it’s obvious. You manipulated the simulation; you’re Divergent. I’ll delete the footage, but unless you want to wind up dead at the bottom of the chasm, you’ll figure out how to hide it during the simulations! Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
I walk back to the simulation room, pulling the door closed behind me. It’s easy to delete the footage--just a few keystrokes and it’s done, the record clean. I double-check her file, making sure the only thing that’s in there is the data from the first simulation. I’ll have to come up with a way to explain where the data from this session went. A good lie, one that Eric and Max will actually believe.
In a hurry, I take out my pocketknife and wedge it between the panels covering the motherboard of the computer, prying them apart. Then I go into the hallway, to the drinking fountain, and fill my mouth with water.
When I return to the simulation room, I spit some of the water into the gap between the panels. I put my knife away and wait.
A minute or so later, the screen goes dark. Dauntless headquarters is basically a leaky cave--water damage happens all the time.
”
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Veronica Roth (Four: A Divergent Story Collection (Divergent, #0.1-0.4))
“
requirements. In Russia today, everything happened to maintain the nadzirateli, the overseers, to protect their power, to continue looting the country’s patrimony. Nate wanted to devastate the opposition, to avenge MARBLE, to take away their power. Nate was dark—black hair and straight eyebrows—of medium height, and slim from varsity swimming in college. What colleagues and friends noticed however, were darting brown eyes that read faces, weighed gestures, and narrowed with quick comprehension. On the street, those brown eyes scanned ahead, watched the wings, picked up the peripheral anomalies before there was movement. During surveillance exercises as a CIA
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Jason Matthews (Palace of Treason (Red Sparrow Trilogy #2))
“
The public debate on surveillance is often cast in terms of a trade-off between security and privacy. The truth is that luxury and convenience have been pre-eminent themes in the last decade, and we have given them a much higher priority than either security or privacy. We have all embraced the world of surveillance with remarkable eagerness, surfing the internet in a global search for a better bargain, better friends, even a better partner.
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Richard J. Aldrich (GCHQ)
“
Ortega’s friends traced his troubles to about a year earlier, when he had become agitated watching an antigovernment film. The movie, called The Obama Deception, was written and produced by Alex Jones, a Texas-based conspiracy theorist and talk show host. It claimed that a cluster of wealthy families were engaged in a conspiracy with President Obama and had installed him in the White House to use the government to surveil and hurt the interests of most Americans. Soon Ortega bought a powerful rifle and began practicing his aim.
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Carol Leonnig (Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service)
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Pedersen’s research identifies six categories of privacy behaviors: solitude, isolation, anonymity, reserve, intimacy with friends, and intimacy with family. His study shows that these varied behaviors accomplish a rich array of complex psychological “privacy functions” considered salient for psychological health and developmental success: contemplation, autonomy, rejuvenation, confiding, freedom, creativity, recovery, catharsis, and concealment. These are experiences without which we can neither flourish nor usefully contribute to our families, communities, and society.
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Shoshana Zuboff (The Age of Surveillance Capitalism)
“
Their analyses produced detailed portraits of individual and group life: the “social system,” as the authors called it. They were able to specify regular temporal and spatial patterns of location, activity, and communication-use patterns, which together enabled predictions of up to 90 percent accuracy regarding where someone was likely to be and what that person was likely to be doing within the hour, as well as highly accurate predictions about an individual’s colleagues, casual friends, and close relationships.
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Shoshana Zuboff (The Age of Surveillance Capitalism)
“
I tell them that the word “search” has meant a daring existential journey, not a finger tap to already existing answers; that “friend” is an embodied mystery that can be forged only face-to-face and heart-to-heart; and that “recognition” is the glimmer of homecoming we experience in our beloved’s face, not “facial recognition.” I say that it is not OK to have our best instincts for connection, empathy, and information exploited by a draconian quid pro quo that holds these goods hostage to the pervasive strip search of our lives. It is not OK for every move, emotion, utterance, and desire to be catalogued, manipulated, and then used to surreptitiously herd us through the future tense for the sake of someone else’s profit. “These things are brand-new,” I tell them. “They are unprecedented. You should not take them for granted because they are not OK.
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Shoshana Zuboff (The Age of Surveillance Capitalism)
“
Mass surveillance and data mining are much more suitable for tasks of population discrimination: finding people with certain political beliefs, people who are friends with certain individuals, people who are members of secret societies, and people who attend certain meetings and rallies. Those are all individuals of interest to a government intent on social control like China. The reason data mining works to find them is that, like credit card fraudsters, political dissidents are likely to share a well-defined profile. Additionally, under authoritarian rule the inevitable false alarms are less of a problem; charging innocent people with sedition instills fear in the populace.
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Bruce Schneier (Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World)
“
Similarly, those Internet tycoons who are apparently so willing to devalue our privacy are vehemently protective of their own. Google insisted on a policy of not talking to reporters from CNET, the technology news site, after CNET published Eric Schmidt’s personal details—including his salary, campaign donations, and address, all public information obtained via Google—in order to highlight the invasive dangers of his company. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg purchased the four homes adjacent to his own in Palo Alto, at a cost of $30 million, to ensure his privacy. As CNET put it, “Your personal life is now known as Facebook’s data. Its CEO’s personal life is now known as mind your own business.” The same contradiction is expressed by the many ordinary citizens who dismiss the value of privacy yet nonetheless have passwords on their email and social media accounts. They put locks on their bathroom doors; they seal the envelopes containing their letters. They engage in conduct when nobody is watching that they would never consider when acting in full view. They say things to friends, psychologists, and lawyers that they do not want anyone else to know. They give voice to thoughts online that they do not want associated with their names. The many pro-surveillance advocates I have debated since Snowden blew the whistle have been quick to echo Eric Schmidt’s view that privacy is for people who have something to hide. But none of them would willingly give me the passwords to their email accounts, or allow video cameras in their homes.
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Anonymous
“
did highlight the case of Najibullah Zazi. In 2009, Zazi was arrested just days before he and friends were allegedly planning to carry out a suicide bombing in the New York City subway. According to Alexander, Zazi was swept up in a dragnet called “Operation High-Rise.” The
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Julia Angwin (Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security, and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance)
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Especially for the younger generation, the Internet is not some standalone, separate domain where a few of life’s functions are carried out. It is not merely our post office and our telephone. Rather, it is the epicenter of our world, the place where virtually everything is done. It is where friends are made, where books and films are chosen, where political activism is organized, where the most private data is created and stored. It is where we develop and express our very personality and sense of self. To turn that network
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Glenn Greenwald (No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State)
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Most people don't seem to care whether their intimate details are collected and used by corporations; they think that surveillance by governments they trust is a necessary prerequisite to keeping them safe. Most people are still overly scared of terrorism. They don't understand the extent of the surveillance capabilities available to both governments and private parties. They underestimate the amount of surveillance that's going on and don't realize that mass government surveillance doesn't do much to keep us safe. Most people are happy to exchange sensitive personal information for free e-mail, web search, or a platform on which to chat with their friends.
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Bruce Schneier (Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World)
“
beyond American surveillance. There were no other messages on Haytham’s phone, and he shut it off. He accessed the text messages on Mayfield’s phone and saw a new text from Walsh. It read: TO ALL FBI AGENTS AND NYPD DETECTIVES: TWO LIBYAN INFORMANTS IN NY METRO HAVE COME FORWARD WITH INFO ON SUSPECT KHALIL IN CONUS. CHECK E-MAIL FOR DETAILS AND OPERATIONAL INSTRUCTION REGARDING APPREHENDING SUSPECT. WALSH, SAC, ATTF/NY. He shut off Mayfield’s phone and thought about this. If this was true, it presented some problems to him and to his mission. In fact, he would not know who to trust. He realized, though, that if this message from Walsh had been sent to all agents and all detectives, then it should have appeared on Haytham’s screen. But it had not. And Walsh did not know at the time he sent his message that he, Asad Khalil, would have Haytham’s phone in his possession. So why was the message not on Haytham’s phone? And why was it on Mayfield’s phone? She was dead when the message was sent. Therefore, he thought, this was a false message, sent only to Mayfield’s cell phone, which Walsh must now suspect was in the hands of Asad Khalil. And this was why Mayfield’s phone was still in service. He sat back on the bench and stared out at the sunlit water. So perhaps they were being clever. But not clever enough. Or… possibly it was a true message, but not actually sent to all detectives and agents despite the heading. Perhaps they did not trust Haytham. Or perhaps Haytham was not included for some other reason. In truth, Khalil did not know all there was to know about the inner workings of the Task Force, which was not as well known to Libyan Intelligence—or to his new friends in Al Qaeda—as was the FBI, for instance. In any case, this message had all the tell-tale signs of disinformation, and that was how he would regard it, which would please Boris, who had spent days teaching him about this. Boris had said, “The British are masters of disinformation, the Americans have learned from them, the French think they invented it, and the Germans are not subtle enough to put out a good lie. As for the Italians, your former colonial masters, they believe their
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Nelson DeMille (The Lion (John Corey, #5))
“
What good did all the surveillance technology do for the victim? Where is the victim's father? Where is his agency? What is his power and influence? Where is his circle of family and friends? The perpetrator has a family. In days of old, this would have been settled by the families. Instead, the pity social media post goes up, dad buys his kid a toy, and the world moves on. A familial act of justice would prevent the next stomping for another child, but that is barbaric.
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Ryan Landry (Masculinity Amidst Madness)
“
The following chapters will explore some of the more formalized “content cartels” in further detail, but in seeking to illustrate how backdoor agreements further increase the existing repression, one example stands out: the close relationship between Facebook and the Israeli government. For Palestinians, many of whom are physically cut off from the world by occupation and border controls, the internet is—in the words of author Miriyam Aouragh—“a mediating space through which the Palestinian nation is globally ‘imagined’ and shaped,” bringing together a dispersed diaspora along with a geographically fragmented nation.24 Social media has not only enabled long-lost relatives and friends to come together virtually, but has also provided space for organizing and the development of an alternate narrative to that provided by the mainstream media, which has long privileged the Israeli political position over that of the Palestinian one. But just as Palestinian activist voices have been historically devalued and silenced by mainstream media, so too have they been censored by social media platforms—while Israeli hate speech on the same platforms often goes ignored. In the summer of 2014, a few months after US-brokered peace talks faltered, three Israeli youth were kidnapped and murdered in the occupied West Bank. In retaliation, three Israeli men abducted and murdered a Palestinian teenager, leading to increased tensions, violent clashes, and an increase in rockets fired by Hamas into Israeli territory. Israel responded with airstrikes, raining rockets into Gaza and killing more than two thousand Palestinians and injuring more than ten thousand more—a majority of whom were civilians. As the violence played out on the ground, social media became a secondary battlefield for both sides, as well as their supporters and detractors.
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Jillian York (Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism)
“
As I arrived to work one day early that summer, I received a frantic call from a Palestinian friend in the United States. At that point, the kidnapped Israeli boys had not yet been killed, and my friend had discovered a Facebook page threatening the murder, every hour, of a “terrorist” until the boys were found. The page, in Hebrew, was quite clearly using “terrorist” as a stand-in for “Palestinian” and included comments such as “Kill them while they are still in their mother’s [womb],” but when my friend reported it, she received a message that the page was not in violation of the community standards—despite existing prohibitions on both hate speech and credible threats.25 I emailed a contact on Facebook’s policy team, who responded: “Seems like a violation of our terms. I’ll run it by people here.” As I awaited my contact’s reply, the page began calling for the deaths of specific individuals. I wrote back to share that new information, and my contact replied to say that although they were still chasing down an answer, “if it’s threatening people’s lives, it seems to qualify, right?” But later that day, my contact informed me over the phone that the page was not, in fact, in violation of the rules. The threat wasn’t deemed to be credible, and on top of that, “terrorist” wasn’t a protected category under the prohibition on hate speech. In a statement, Face-book’s head of global policy management, Monika Bickert, explained: “We clearly list the characteristics that we consider to be hate speech, and if it doesn’t come under one of those categories, we don’t consider it hate speech under our policies.”26 The page remained up.
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Jillian York (Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism)
“
While accusations that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is a Nazi are surely exaggerations, it is not a stretch to say that white supremacy is alive and well in certain segments of Silicon Valley. From Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, a Trump donor who reportedly ran a “shitposting” account on Reddit, to Facebook board member Peter Thiel, known for attending white nationalist–friendly events and undermining free expression, to Clearview AI CEO Hoan Ton-That, perhaps Silicon Valley’s most notable alt-right supporter, the field is rife with white supremacist sympathizers.30
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Jillian York (Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism)
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Wood and his friends knew their phones were tapped, and he was personally aware of being monitored. His daily routine would have him cross through Checkpoint Charlie into the western zone, mainly to coordinate coverage with Uli Jörges, or report on West Berlin stories, occassionally meet our guys in the military to trade gossip, or simply do some shopping. Uli Jörges was aware of the East German intelligence service’s surveillance in West Berlin as well as East. “The Stasi obviously bugged my phone in our West Berlin Reuters office, and we knew they had mapped out our homes and wherever we stayed.
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Iain MacGregor (Checkpoint Charlie: The Cold War, the Berlin Wall and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth)
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No sign of danger, no sign of anything except— There. A prickle at the back of his neck. Like a chill wind had skittered over the top of his spine. “Dec’s new security system picked up some kind of anomaly,” Flynn said, scanning the party below. He’d gone into pure Aux mode. “It’s making all the sensors go off. Some kind of aura—Dec said it felt like a storm was circling the house.” “Great,” Ruhn said, the hilt of the Starsword cool against his back. “And it’s not some drunk asshole dicking around with magic?” Flynn assessed the crowds. “Dec didn’t think so. He said from the way it circled the house, it seemed like it was surveilling the area.” Their friend and roommate had spent months designing a system to be placed around their house and the surrounding streets—one that could pick up things like the kristallos demon, formerly too fast for their technology to detect.
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Sarah J. Maas (House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City, #2))
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Citizen Lab, which tracks state-backed efforts to hack and surveil journalists, had recently reported that NSO Group’s Pegasus software compromised an iPhone belonging to a friend of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, not long before Saudi operatives cut Khashoggi to pieces with a bone saw. The investigation had prompted sharp criticism of NSO Group, which denied that its software was used to target Khashoggi but also refused to answer questions about whether the software had been sold to the Saudi government. Lambert wanted to know about Citizen Lab’s work on NSO Group. He asked whether there was any “racist element” to the focus on an Israeli group. He pressed Scott-Railton about his views on the Holocaust. As they spoke, Lambert took out a black pen with a silver clip and a chrome ring on its barrel. He laid it just so on a legal pad in front of him, tip pointed at Scott-Railton.
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Ronan Farrow (Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators)
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surveillance. And I could only get privileges if I completed my hard labor. And if I didn’t listen, I got thrown in the hole. . .solitary confinement with no video games, no friends and no cake. I don’t know if I’m gonna make it. It’s either gonna do me in or I need to. . .I need to. . . That’s it! I need to escape! No one that has tried to escape this parental death trap has ever been seen again. But I need to succeed where my brothers in arms have failed. I had to make a Prison Break!
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Zack Zombie (Diary of a Minecraft Zombie Book 12: Pixelmon Gone!)
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Deep State”—the Invisible Government The terms “invisible government,” “shadow government,” and more recently “Deep State” have been used to describe the secretive, occult, and international banking and business families that control financial institutions, both political parties, and cabals within various intelligence agencies in Britain and America. Edward L. Bernays, a pioneer in the field of propaganda, spoke of the “invisible government” as the “true ruling power of our country.” He said, “We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”40 “The political process of the United States of America [is] under attack by intelligence agencies and individuals in those agencies,” U.S. representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) said. “You have politicization of agencies that is resulting in leaks from anonymous, unknown people, and the intention is to take down a president. Now, this is very dangerous to America. It’s a threat to our republic; it constitutes a clear and present danger to our way of life.”41 Emotional Contagion One of the reasons why the Deep State has been able to hide in plain sight is because it controls the mainstream media in the United States. Despite the growing evidence of its existence, the media largely denies this reality. David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, wrote an article titled, “There Is No Deep State: The Problem in Washington Is Not a Conspiracy Against the President; It’s the President Himself.” Like the “thought police” in George Orwell’s 1984—a classic book about a dystopian future where critical thought is suppressed by a totalitarian regime—the Deep State uses the media to program the population according to the dictates of Big Brother and tell people in effect that “WAR IS PEACE,” “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,” and “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”42 Many of the largest social media platforms are used by the Deep State for surveillance and to influence the masses. Many people think social media is just for personal fun and networking with friends, family, and business associates. However, this innocent activity enables powerful computer networks to create detailed profiles of people’s political and moral beliefs and buying habits, as well as a deep analysis of their psychological conflicts, emotional problems, and pretty much anything Big Brother wants to know. Most people don’t understand the true extent of surveillance now occurring. For at least a decade, digital flat-screen televisions, cell phones and smartphones, laptop computers, and most devices with a camera and microphone could be used to spy on you without your knowledge. Even if the power on one of these devices was off, you could still be recorded by supercomputers collecting “mega-data” for potential use later. These technologies are also used to transform
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Paul McGuire (Trumpocalypse: The End-Times President, a Battle Against the Globalist Elite, and the Countdown to Armageddon (Babylon Code))
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Yo mama is so ugly… they had to feed her with a Frisbee! Yo mama is so ugly… when she watches TV the channels change themselves! Yo mama is so ugly… she looks like she has been bobbing for apples in hot grease! Yo mama is so ugly… they passed a law saying she could only do online shopping! Yo mama is so ugly… she looked in the mirror and her reflection committed suicide! Yo mama is so ugly… even homeless people won’t take her money! Yo mama is so ugly… she’s the reason blind dates were invented! Yo mama is so ugly… even a pit-bull wouldn’t bite her! Yo mama is so ugly… she scares the paint off the wall! Yo mama is so ugly… she scares roaches away! Yo mama is so ugly… she looked out the window and got arrested! Yo mama is so ugly… she had to get a prescription mirror! Yo mama is so ugly… bullets refuse to kill her! Yo mama is so ugly… for Halloween she trick-or-treats on the phone! Yo mama is so ugly… when she plays Mortal Kombat, Scorpion says, “Stay over there!” Yo mama is so ugly… I told her to take out the trash and we never saw her again! Yo mama is so ugly… even Hello Kitty said goodbye! Yo mama is so ugly… even Rice Krispies won't talk to her! Yo mama is so ugly… that your father takes her to work with him so that he doesn't have to kiss her goodbye. Yo mama is so ugly… she made the Devil go to church! Yo mama is so ugly… she made an onion cry. Yo mama is so ugly… when she walks down the street in September, people say “Wow, is it Halloween already?” Yo mama is so ugly… she is the reason that Sonic the Hedgehog runs! Yo mama is so ugly… The NHL banned her for life. Yo mama is so ugly… she scared the crap out of a toilet! Yo mama is so ugly… she turned Medusa to stone! Yo mama is so ugly… her pillow cries at night! Yo mama is so ugly… she tried to take a bath and the water jumped out! Yo mama is so ugly… she gets 364 extra days to dress up for Halloween. Yo mama is so ugly… people put pictures of her on their car to prevent theft! Yo mama is so ugly… her mother had to be drunk to breast feed her! Yo mama is so ugly… instead of putting the bungee cord around her ankle, they put it around her neck. Yo mama is so ugly… when they took her to the beautician it took 24 hours for a quote! Yo mama is so ugly… they didn't give her a costume when she tried out for Star Wars. Yo mama is so ugly… just after she was born, her mother said, “What a treasure!” And her father said, “Yes, let's go bury it!” Yo mama is so ugly… her mom had to tie a steak around her neck to get the dogs to play with her. Yo mama is so ugly… when she joined an ugly contest, they said, “Sorry, no professionals.” Yo mama is so ugly… they had to feed her with a slingshot! Yo mama is so ugly… that she scares blind people! Yo mama is so ugly… when she walks into a bank they turn off the surveillance cameras. Yo mama is so ugly… she got beat up by her imaginary friends! Yo mama is so ugly… the government moved Halloween to her birthday.
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Johnny B. Laughing (Yo Mama Jokes Bible: 350+ Funny & Hilarious Yo Mama Jokes)
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Not every declaration is a spoken statement. Sometimes we just describe, refer to, talk about, think about, or even act in relation to a situation in ways that “create a reality by representing that reality as created.” For example, let’s say the waiter brings my friend and me two identical bowls of soup, placing one bowl in front of each of us. Without saying anything, he has declared that the bowls are not the same: one bowl is my friend’s, and the other bowl is mine. We strengthen the facts of his declaration when I take soup only from “my” bowl and my friend takes soup from his. When “his” bowl is empty, my friend is still hungry, and he asks permission to take a spoonful of soup from the bowl in front of me, further establishing the fact that it is my bowl of soup. In this way declarations rise or fall on the strength of others’ acceptance of the new facts. As Searle concludes, “All of institutional reality, and therefore . . . all of human civilization is created by . . . declarations.”4
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Shoshana Zuboff (The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power)
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What good did all the surveillance technology do for te victim? Where is the victim's father? Where is his agency? What is his power and influence? Where is his circle of family and friends? The perpetrator has a family. In days of old, this would have been settled by the families. Instead, the pity social media post goes up, dad buys his kid a toy, and the world moves on. A familial act of justice would prevent the next stomping for another child, but that is barbaric.
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Ryan Landry (Masculinity Amidst Madness)
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Several years ago, I attended the bat mitzvah of my best friend's daughter. During the ceremony, the rabbi emphasized that 'the central lesson' for the girl to learn was that she was 'always being watched and judged.' He told her that God always knew what she was doing, every choice, every action, and even every thought, no matter how private. 'You are never alone,' he said, which meant that she should always adhere to God's will.
The rabbi's point was clear: if you can never evade the watchful eyes of a supreme authority, there is no choice but to follow the dictates that the authority imposes. You cannot even consider forging your own path beyond those rules: if you believe you are always being watched and judged, you are not really a free individual.
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Glenn Greenwald (No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State)
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Please do,” she said. “My husband’s not going to believe this.” “Well, your husband may not be happy, because I’m not going to be able to lift those cabinets up and put them back.” “Don’t worry. He and his friends can do that. They hang out in here enough and this will be a great story for him to tell.” “That makes me feel better. We’re going to write out a receipt for you now.” They put the weapons in the trunk of the car, laying them across a blanket Bosch kept in his surveillance kit. They then thanked Mrs. Contreras and gave her the receipt. Finally they headed back toward Los Angeles. There was an almost palpable excitement
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Michael Connelly (The Burning Room (Harry Bosch, #17; Harry Bosch Universe, #27))
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The same contradiction is expressed by the many ordinary citizens who dismiss the value of privacy yet nonetheless have passwords on their email and social media accounts. They put locks on their bathroom doors; they seal the envelopes containing their letters. They engage in conduct when nobody is watching that they would never consider when acting in full view. They say things to friends, psychologists, and lawyers that they do not want anyone else to know. They give voice to thoughts online that they do not want associated with their names.
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Glenn Greenwald (No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State)
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Congress today reauthorized funding for Facebook, the massive online surveillance program run by the CIA. According to reports, Facebook has replaced almost every other CIA information-gathering program since it was launched in 2004. [A mock CIA official noted,] “After years of secretly monitoring the public, we were astounded so many people would willingly publicize where they live, their religious and political views, an alphabetized list of all their friends, personal e-mail addresses, phone numbers, hundreds of photos of themselves, and even status updates about what they were doing moment to moment. It is truly a dream come true for the CIA. Much of the credit belongs to CIA agent Mark Zuckerberg, who runs the day-to-day Facebook operation for the agency.
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Marc Goodman (Future Crimes)
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Their bonds with one another, and with their friends in the democratic world, are cemented not through ideals but through deals—deals designed to take the edge off sanctions, to exchange surveillance technology, to help one another get rich.
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Anne Applebaum (Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World)
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The Road to Excellence: A Traveler’s Experience on India’s Best Highway Infrastructure
Road trips are all about the journey, and nothing makes a trip more enjoyable than a smooth, well-maintained highway. On my recent travel, I had the opportunity to experience one of the finest examples of India’s best highway infrastructure. The seamless roads, well-planned amenities, and breathtaking landscapes made this journey one to remember. #modernroad
An Unmatched Driving Experience
From the moment I entered this highway, I knew I was in for a stress-free ride. The well-marked lanes, smooth road surface, and efficient toll system made driving feel effortless. Unlike older highways where frequent bumps and congestion slow you down, this stretch allowed for an uninterrupted journey.
Key features that stood out:
Spacious and clearly marked lanes ensured a safe drive.
Automated toll booths reduced waiting time significantly.
Minimal road diversions meant a consistent and smooth experience.
Whether you're driving for business or leisure, this highway ensures that you reach your destination faster and with less fatigue. #modernroadmakers
A Scenic Drive Through Nature
What makes a highway special isn’t just its infrastructure but also the experience it offers to travelers. Driving along this road felt like gliding through a scenic painting, with lush green landscapes stretching as far as the eye could see.
Eco-friendly green belts add to the beauty while reducing pollution.
Rest stops and food courts are well-placed for a comfortable journey.
Nearby towns and villages remain well-connected without disrupting highway traffic.
The balance between modernity and nature makes this highway stand out among India's best. #indiabesthighway
Safety and Efficiency at Its Best
A good highway isn’t just about smooth roads—it’s also about safety and maintenance. This one excels in both.
✔ Surveillance cameras and speed monitors ensure discipline on the road.
✔ Emergency response teams are available at short intervals.
✔ Smart drainage systems prevent waterlogging, even in heavy rains.
It’s clear that meticulous planning and highway technology have made this route one of the safest in India.
Boosting Connectivity and Growth
Apart from making travel easier, highways like this are driving economic progress.
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amanblogger
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A Road Trip Dream: The Highway That Changed My Perspective
I’ve driven on many highways, but this one made me fall in love with road trips all over again. It wasn’t just about speed or efficiency; it was about how a well-built highway transforms the travel experience. My journey on India’s best highway infrastructure was nothing short of amazing. #modernroad
Designed for the Ultimate Driving Experience
The moment my car hit the road, I knew this was different. No unnecessary braking, no struggling with potholes—just pure driving pleasure.
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geetublogger
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A Road Trip Dream: The Highway That Changed My Perspective
I’ve driven on many highways, but this one made me fall in love with road trips all over again. It wasn’t just about speed or efficiency; it was about how a well-built highway transforms the travel experience. My journey on India’s best highway infrastructure was nothing short of amazing. #modernroad
Designed for the Ultimate Driving Experience
The moment my car hit the road, I knew this was different. No unnecessary braking, no struggling with potholes—just pure driving pleasure.
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devblogger
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Beyond Roads: The Highway That Redefined My Travel Experience
Some highways are built for convenience, but others redefine the way we travel. On my recent trip, I experienced India’s best highway infrastructure, and it was more than just a road—it was a glimpse into the future of Indian highways. #modernroad
Built for Speed, Safety, and Smoothness
Unlike the usual roads where unexpected bumps slow you down, this highway was designed for effortless driving.
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gautamblogger
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Lee Ultimate Hacker: Phone Surveillance, Private Investigations, Crypto Recovery
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