Are we being spied on, a basic discussion of paranoya

I beleive our gov is up to some sneaky stuff. They've admitted wire taps but that was because they got caught. How much privacy do we have?

I think all the governments of the world practice control over their citizens in some form and to some degree. Of course some more than others, and yes definitely our government is spying on us, to believe otherwise would be naive.

We most likely have very little true privacy, with all of the cameras, recorders, etc that there are out there, we have very little to ourselves.

But, in practice, almost no matter how important you think you are, they don't care about you. The fear shouldn't be focused on if someone is watching you right now, they aren't. It's if someone will look back at the records you left afterwards.

IE: I send an e-mail to my pal about some drug lab or bomb facility i'm running - the gov wont see it. They don't care. Not until i've DONE something will i be watched.

Really the GOV doesn't care what you SAY... most who talk big are really small any way. It's what you say after you've done something that they are intrested in.

So, in reality, someone posting their new way towards free energy, or some world changing break with einstein, or some anti-gravity drive, is in all reality not being watched - as they are classified along with the other hundreds of thousands of others who are (according to many) nuts.

I would prepose that the government is really just a bunch of people - normal human beings, who are scared because they have no control over terrorism. What they do is look to all information sources they can to get a handle on the situation (moral and ethical concerns aside). Do they have time to pay someone to look over all these forum posts? to install spyware and parse the results from your spesific computer? no. I would guess that only a few individuals (maybe a few thousand) have had their personal lives actually looked into with any details.

Yeah they've got your phone records... they've got everyone elses too.. will they have time too look at mine? maybe sometime in 2145 (but i plan on being dead by then).

J-n

Who do you think is loading all that spyware on your computer? Who's keeping track of which websites you visit?

It ain't the govt that's spying on you... It's marketing departments.

Corporations run the world, governments and corporations are intimately connected.

Just like governments though... companies couldnt care less about YOU they only care about the big picture.. trends.. etc..

I would guess that 1 person can actively spy on only a few people at a time, right?

well... to cover the whole united states.. (aprox 300m individuals) would take quite a few people reading over messages to gain meaning.. etc (computers can search for certain words.. but they cant decipher if i'm saying that New York IS THA BOMB or there is a BOMB in new york) espically if you start to take into account the ammount of communication americans are involved in every day.

If there were 100,000 people working on tracking every american they would have to each track over 3000 individuals. Survailance should be complete if you wish to garner much information from it.. so I would expect that even with companies tracking what we buy, the gov spying on my phone, and google watching my searches... they dont have enough manpower or time or (in all actuality) the desire to watch me take a dump.. let alone post in some forum or call my drug dealer.

There are security concerns, and the slippery slope arguement, having to do with increasing encrochments on individual privacy... I just dont think anyone will go through the great expence of spying on my every move just to attempt to sell me a burrito, or to try to stop my next terriorist act or drug deal, or murder.. they may collect and use the info after they have a name to search for... but why waste the time, money, resources to watch my moves?

J-n

There is a great ability now to track every move a person makes where many cameras (even satellites) can track our every move, where our use of the internety can be monitored, where computers can check on where we work, our history and what we are doing now. While it is impossible to track everyone, it has a great potential for abuse in the wrong hands where someone's bank account and financial history could be wiped out and where evidence could be fabricated against you using digital technology to alter photos and phone conversations and such. And do we trust any government?

I don't like the proliferation of mobile phone cameras with still and video capability which decreases our privacy even more from casual intrusion.

excuse me, im confused i thought we were spying on them, haha, only if you have something to hide. would you think that someone was spying on you. now . this is intresting, if you did have something to hide. rather than get spyed on. you would make the people you were hiding something from think they were being spyed on so they are in fact the brainwashed. i choose not to go there. if you think your being spyed on you probably will be , sooner or later it will manifest. when we fall for it we create what the original diversion was, heres the big mistake tho .why would they tell everyone they are being spyed on what kind of spy is that. that means one thing, they arnt. if they were we wouldnt know. darn i could have gotten a couple acadrmy awards . thanks .

I think how much we are being spied on is limited by the technology and the manpower of our respective governments. They believe they know what is best for us and would control our every movement if they could.

Yeah, i'm pretty sure that we are spied on regularly. The technology is that where they can land a housefly with a camera on someones shirt and have them not know about it. Not that every house fly is a camera in disguise but the tech is there and i'm sure they use it.

so you think that they always know exactly where the weapons of massbinladen are?

perhaps they know how to stop polluting the planet also but just cant be bothered?


g.

Ah well, what' seen as spying from one side will be seen as the legitimate right to protect one self from the other side ;)

Here is some links.
fly.hiwaay.net/~pspoole/echelon.html
cryptome.org/echelon-cinsa.htm
www.mega.nu/ampp/privacy.html
www.hermetic.ch/crypto/echelon/echelon.htm


You have to make your own choices were your beliefs lie.
But that's true for everything, ain't it ;)
The hard work nowadays are made by sophisticated software, not by humans.
Remember how the states government wanted access to Googles Database? Did you know that they (Google) store everything you ever written? for 'research_purposes'. I find it a somewhat dubious practice myself, but every one to his own taste.

This post has been edited by yor_on on Feb 21 2007, 04:09 PM

No, i don't think they know where they are. To spie on something, you have to know where it is to begin with. We do know how to stop polluting the planet. But, it's not bad enough for us to want to make the necessary sacrifices.

oh thats ok then. we'll just wait until it gets bad enough shall we?

if this is thinking big we dont need to be spied on. just sent off to pre-fabricated 'wars' every now and then to cull the population. the same landowners use similar tactics on their estates for controlling animal populations.

is it time to buy oxygen shares yet?


g.