Posts by Mark 85 12880 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Nov 2012
If there's a non-disclosure agreement and the ACLU has no proof they are using this, it's just an expensive fishing expedition, I'd think. Even if the LEA's involved don't have one or access to one, how do they prove it? Just because they can get their hands on one doesn't mean they have. This is much like asking someone: "Do you still beat your wife/husband/grandmother?".
Why use a picture of an Army group at an NSA exercise in an article about the CIA's work?
Spies are spies... even Cyberspies. The CIA being the CIA historically doesn't like pictures, obviously, since they still do a lot of human intel. Maybe they'd have to make any photographer "disappear"?
The visas exist not because there aren't enough bods to fill the jobs (at least when they started issuing them). It was because the citizens who could fill them were, shall we say "pricey". Corporates wanted to cut the pay expense by importing labor and off-shoring others. Unless the "user fee" plus wage of the visa fueled labor is less than the pay for a citizen, companies will just pay the fee and figure they're still saving money.
I seriously doubt that this "plan" won't change anything except create another layer of bureaucracy in the government while making the voters, etc. feel good.
I'm thinking you're mostly right on the demographic but there's a catch.... school kids usually don't have the cash for a gold-plated anything. However, marketing/sales/c-suite types... they don't need the bells and whistles. They do presentations and take some notes. This is ideal for them and it's very much 'bling' to set them apart from the masses.
Let's make an assumption (a big one, I know) that Parliament decides this POSTnote is a good and proper thing to implement and they somehow do it well. Over here, Congress will do the opposite because "damn it.. we gotta' stop the terrorists from hiding in this thing...."
What is or isn't NN is currently being shaped and pushed on those who legislate and regulate by the money people. The lobbyists and their corporate bosses have shaped the discussions and the mouthings of idiots like the FCC and Oettinger. Since they are in charge, it's presumed by the great unwashed and those who write the laws that they know what they're talking about. Ah.. politics.... you don't need smarts, just someone who will tell you what to say and when to say it.
I think you've hit on where this clown is coming from. I've heard this from the US also so I'm thinking that these guys are now using "safety whilst driving" your automated car to come up with regulations. The question is, who's spewing this? And why are they believing it? Those behind IoT maybe doing the spewing?
Leftist hit piece???? I don't think so. I daresay this applies to both sides of the political spectrum.
The rest of what you said does apply and I completely agree with.
Hell, the CEO of where I work doesn't do his own email... yet, if you email him, you get back a "personal response".... from his drones.
It's definitely a sickness and probably a power play for budget and position in the government by the CIA. We now appear to have two agencies duplicating each others efforts and spending a lot more tax dollars to do it.
I'm thinking it's mission creep and agency competition going on. Once upon a time, the NSA did the surveillance and the CIA did the human intelligence (boots on the ground). I guessing the NSA isn't passing along or making the info the CIA needs available. It will probably take an act of Congress to merge these two together but that still doesn't mean that they'll be any more effective. But, fat chance of that happening given the Congress we have elected. I'm not sure who's the bigger idiots... the agencies, the Congress, or the those of us who elected Congress and continue to re-elect idiots with a mouth full of promises.
Years ago back in the MLK and anti-war protests, the police and the FBI gathered faces, names, and everything they could at any protest meeting/march. And they shared it. Given the tech at the time, it was inefficient. The point is, they are gathering it and using it. They are releasing it to "appropriate" (whatever the hell that is) partners.
Anecdote... I was attending college after my tenure in Vietnam. One day, there was a protest about the war and they usual rabble rousers were blocking entrances. Myself and 3 other vets marched past them and entered the building. 20 years later, I had some business with the local constabulary (nothing illegal but inquiry into some things going on in the neighborhood at the time. The cop ran a check on me and made a comment about "I guess you gave up protesting?".....
So yeah.. they gather and share. We're all being watched and have been watched for a long time. It's just the tech that is getting better.
We need a cynic icon which I would have used for my previous post.
Let's be honest, in all probability, the 5-eyes have a copy of those police records. In various places, information sharing is as common as drinking water. So the police delete the file. Is it really deleted or does a copy exist elsewhere?
From a monetary side, I'm surprised that the governments just don't come out and allow the file sharing so that the cost of the data centers can be reduced. Yes, the Stasi own our data and us but right now, it's apparently duplicated by every agency that exists. If you're going to spy on me and "keep an eye on me" then dammit, do it right and centrally locate all the data or don't do it all. What I see in the States is that if you get pulled over for traffic violation, the cops in most jurisdictions (read as departments with the budge) have access to the departments in every place I've ever lived. So why duplicate the expense?
I'm in total disagreement with the centralization and watching everyone, but if it's going to be done, then save some my tax dollars for something useful.
The Germans pulled a similar thing. The could produce X number of aircraft and thus figure they needed X number of pilots. When the fighters started getting knocked out of the air, the pilots found they didn't have a plane to fly as the rest were all assigned. Seems that many militaries didn't take well to the concept of "spares".
If we're in the same part of the world, just getting it through that holding a phone to your ear and driving is illegal in most states and a really dumb idea. How many idiots are still killed (or kill someone else) while driving and texting even after all the signs, billboards, PSA's, news stories, etc.? I tend to agree that the only thing fixes stupid, is death.
Any advantage they want is simply to disable the enemy in any way possible.
There's the problem with the 5-Eyes so far.. they haven't identified "the enemy". So they assume it's you, myself, and any and everyone. As Pogo once said: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
I think you're onto something.... one key, one backdoor. Saves time, energy, and aggravation all the way around for all countries and malware authors. Erm.. that last is a bit of problem, isn't it? At least in the "free world" we know that everyone has access to us, might as well bring the Chinese on board too.
But don't you know that $(Deity) put them there because he/she is so smart and wanted to give us a puzzle to work on in our spare time? And that our dating methods are all wrong since nothing is older than 6,000 years.
Icon because the joke is on either us or them... probably them ------------------->
Maybe this "group" ought to go under the leadership of the UN... it has the same results:: spend the maximum amount of money on the needs of the board, decisions that raise eyebrows, no transparency, no accountability, and no brains. At least then the real world would have a valid excuse to ignore them.
The closest icon to holding my head in my hands and mumbling about "stupidity in action" --------->
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