*waves at the nice Tories*

[sabotabby]

It's not paranoia if they really are watching you.

Hey, not that it comes as a surprise or anything. At this point I wouldn't be surprised at anything these bastards did.

Comments

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

To Rosenberg's knowledge this is the first time a Canadian government has spied on it's citizens without a warrant.

Sure! Everyone knows those nice CSIS people always get a warrant.

[jvmatucha.livejournal.com]

Hello tories! Waves also.

I may have told you this story before. A young activist once asked me and some other politcally minded peoples if he should be worried that his emails and activity might be monitored by the government, or that he might have an FBI file somewhere.

I replied, "Damn, I hope I have an FBI file!" Honestly, if I wasn't in the FBI's crazy looney leftist database somwheres, I think I might be seriously offended! I'd be all, "Whattaya mean I'm not in your database? dammit, you put me in there! I am so a threat to the government! And start reading my emails fer chrissakes!"

Seriously, it would be really depressing if I wasn't. All my street cred would be gone! >:/

[cannibal-x.livejournal.com]

wasn't Israel doing this to "improve its image abroad" as well? I wonder if that's where they got the idea.. or if it's just "keeping up with the times"..

But in all seriousness, a close friend of mine used to work for a hi-tech company in Ottawa. She once confided to me that a lot of their work had shifted from web development to contracts maintaining the image of various clients online, for example police agencies, businesses, etc. Editing wikipedia, posting on message boards, etc. Creepy!!

[tinyrevolution.livejournal.com]

Yes, Israel was doing this too under "hasbarah": http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3744516,00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_diplomacy_(Israel)

But it's nothing new: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing

[snarkitysnarks.livejournal.com]

This is extremely creepy?! Jeez what

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

It's funny to me how many people are "shocked" by this. Nobody has no privacy anymore. In way, arguing over it or clutching pearls over it is kinda like arguing over who left the barn door open and let the horse wonder out.

We reached the threshold of 1984 creepiness in "western" democracies a long time ago, now we're at the point were British police departments are using Preditor-style drones to patrol [i]England[/i] for police purposes. We collectively started out on this road 60 years ago when courts started issuing warrants for wire-taps.

That isn't to say that it's right or that we should settle with the status quo.

The thing is now how to figure out how to deal with it.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

It still shocks me, because you sort of assume these things aren't allowed still! The drones are horrifying new things. Why is no one protesting? Can we protest? Can we stick things in the air to bring them down?

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

fuck. is that legal?
over here, local councils have been using the anti-terrorist (i.e. government surveillance) laws to spy on people doing things like dumping rubbish and not having a collar and tag on their dogs and benefit fraudulence. It truly frightens me.

[audrawilliams.livejournal.com]

I remember when this contract was posted on Merx. I couldn't really get any journalists to care.

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

They need some of this: