9/11 epilogue- the surveillance state

[brimic]

On the 18th anniversary of 9/11 let’s take a moment of silence for what we have lost- the ability to go about our daily business without being tracked, listened to, and surveilled ever moment if our lives in the name of ‘safety.’

First off, we all know that our electronic devices from phones to laptops to watches spy on our conversations , our moods, our buying habits, and nobody seems to care. Google/Facebook/amazon feed user data right to our federal government.
Trump made mention of this recently, implying that we should use electronic devices to identify people who shouldn’t own guns.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/beta.washingtonpost.com/health/white-house-considers-controversial-plan-on-mental-illness-and-mass-shooting/2019/09/09/eb58b6f6-ce72-11e9-87fa-8501a456c003_story.html%3FoutputType%3Damp

Next we have Argus-IS, which was tested out in Afghanistan, and is now in deployment over conus. This system can track people, and vehicles over a wide area in very high detail, and the tech is likely far more advanced than the info that can be found on the internet.
https://www.baesystems.com/en-us/product/autonomous-realtime-ground-ubiquitous-surveillance-imaging-system-argusis
Argus-IS, along with more advanced surveillance gear is being tested at this very moment in the Midwest on high altitude blimps that could potentially stay aloft and monitor an area Indefinitely.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/02/pentagon-balloons-surveillance-midwest
We know that they’ve been playing with these on the east coast for a few years now, only because one of them broke and dragged its tether in Pennsylvania.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna453106

The FBI has been handing out ‘Stingray’ units to law enforcement agencies for about a decade now to Hoover up metadata from anyone’s cellphone within its range. Several police agencies, including Milwaukee PD which is local to me, have abused the system illegally (the act of using these units in their very nature is illegal) to identify criminal activity. Serious crimes have been rightfully thrown out of court because of the use of stingray in the cases.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/26/stingray-oakland-police-fbi-surveillance

I’m not sure how others feel, but I used to think that movies like ‘Minority Report’,  ‘Enemy of the State’, and various other dystopian stories were a fun lark, not an actual reality we would face in short order.

Not to worry though, if you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about, we need this technology to track and keep us safe from 8th century religious fanatics, or something. /S

[makattak]

I'm not going to put the onus on the events of 9/11 for the surveillance state.

Great Britain had no such event and are even further along than we are, in that route. Technology is simply making it easier for the government (and huge multi-national corporations as well) to track EVERYTHING, and so they are.

I'd say 9/11 may have sped it along, but we'd be at this same place, eventually. I'm fairly certain it is inevitable.

[Ben]

I'm not going to put the onus on the events of 9/11 for the surveillance state.

Great Britain had no such event and are even further along than we are, in that route. Technology is simply making it easier for the government (and huge multi-national corporations as well) to track EVERYTHING, and so they are.

I'd say 9/11 may have sped it along, but we'd be at this same place, eventually. I'm fairly certain it is inevitable.

Mak, I agree with what you said except for what we do at airports, etc. now. I do think the levels there are directly related to 9/11, whether "because of 9/11" or because 9/11 became a convenient event for the statists on both sides of the aisle to get their "for your safety" stuff on a fast track.

[brimic]

Non't forget the facial recognition on smart phones + facial recognition cameras set up at sports and concert venues as well- its for our safety.

[brimic]

I'm not going to put the onus on the events of 9/11 for the surveillance state.

Great Britain had no such event and are even further along than we are, in that route. Technology is simply making it easier for the government (and huge multi-national corporations as well) to track EVERYTHING, and so they are.

I'd say 9/11 may have sped it along, but we'd be at this same place, eventually. I'm fairly certain it is inevitable.

I remember having a conversation around 2006-2007 timeframe which was an event that really red-pilled me.
A respected colleague and I were arguing over the Patriot Act- me in favor, him, disapproving.
I was of the mind that "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear."
He stated "It might be benign right now, but don't be surprised when its used against you when political winds change."
It really pissed me off, mainly because I knew he was right, and also because I was so easily suckered into supporting it in the first place.
Most of us were suckered into supporting an erosion of our rights.

[Pb]

He stated "It might be benign right now, but don't be surprised when its used against you when political winds change."

Yes... this article has a good description of how gun control was used as a tool to kill leftists by Pinochet.

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/chiles-gun-control-lesson-for-americans/

[brimic]

Yes... this article has a good description of how gun control was used as a tool to kill leftists by Pinochet.

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/chiles-gun-control-lesson-for-americans/

There are a lot of inaccuracies in that article- it keeps referring to marxists and communists as 'people.'

OTOH, its a good lesson for the left today...
The Left: Trump is Hitler.
Also the Left: We need to ban all guns.