The Silicon Valley aristocracy, who have made billions and billions of dollars by collecting ungodly amounts of personal information about us, came out in force yesterday to denounce governments for collecting ungodly amounts of personal information about us.
They're shocked -- shocked I tell you! -- at the intrusion into our privacy.
I have two words for these greedy, lying, hypocrites: screw you.
You are the people who enabled this. You are the people who chose to ignore what was obvious to everyone with a functioning brain -- that your relentless collection of personal information about private citizens is totally at odds with the principles of democracy.
Here's what the despicable hypocrites of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Microsoft and AOL had to say yesterday:
The undersigned companies believe that it is time for the world’s governments to address the practices and laws regulating government surveillance of individuals and access to their information.Let me tell you something Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Microsoft and AOL -- you puffed-up, self-important, arrogant phonies -- you have the smell of this all over you. Pretending that you are suddenly the stalwart guardians of peoples' privacy makes me sick.
If a dumbass blogger could figure out what was going on, don't pretend that you couldn't.
Three years ago, almost to the day, long before all this NSA shit hit the fan, the aforementioned dumbass blogger published an article called Big Brother Has Arrived And He's Us. In the article he wrote:
The essence of freedom and democracy is being undermined.
The Internet now knows everything about us. It knows where we go, who we talk to, what we talk about... It knows our locations at any moment and whom we are with... It knows our political beliefs and our sexual habits... It knows what our ailments are, what drugs we use, what doctors we see and what our psychological profiles are.
It pretends the information is secure, but only a blind fool believes this...
And why does it do all this?... for the marketing and advertising industries...
There is no realistic vision of the future in which this will not lead to appalling mischief.
It’s time to put aside our petty self-interest, take a step back and see where this is leading. We need to stop tracking people and their behavior now. Right nowI know what your posturing is about. It's about money. You are afraid that people are starting to realize what malignant jackals you are. And you're trying to delegate the blame.
Here's what I think:
The undersigned believes that it is time for the world’s web scumbags to address their practices regarding internet surveillance of individuals and access to their information.Physician, heal thyfuckingself.
`
Try this on your Iphone with ios7: Settings, Privacy, Location Services, System Services, Frequent Locations. Under History there is a list of all the places that you have recently frequented. Apple isn't collecting this data just for kicks. Do as I say, not as I do comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteWhen the government does it, it is a giant phallus in the face of democracy.
ReplyDeleteWhen corporations do it, it is modern capitalism.
Think of it this way – if Ed Snowden had worked for Google and leaked a lot of their nasty habits and programs, where would he have sought refuge? Wherever he went, he would have been pursued by a company with an open tab at Lawyers 'R' Us. The government has borders. Google does not.
While we were sleeping, government became the biggest business of them all.
ReplyDelete"Too big to fail"...?
ReplyDeleteThis might just be the hands-down best thing I've ever read on the internet. It deserves to be posted everywhere. Thank you, Bob.
ReplyDeleteBig differences: 1) Private companies don't have the power to capture or kill you, while the government does. 2) It's easy to opt out of using google in favor of duckduckgo or facebook in favor of not using social media. Much harder to opt out of living in US b/c of government surveillance.
ReplyDeleteI've sure that's being held in reserve.
ReplyDeleteIf it were only as easy as opting out of google or f-book in favor of something else. I don't think you're understanding the pervasiveness of the issue.
ReplyDeleteAnd would that be the Federal Reserve, then?
ReplyDeleteThe people who put an end to privacy are now attacking the people who find privacy inconvenient?
ReplyDelete