I wouldn't have thought of casting Zachary Quinto to play @ggreenwald, but it looks like a good choice. https://t.co/U5mhE5zf7X
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) April 27, 2016
There’s a sub-branch of linguistics where the experts search for the words that don’t exist in a particular language — sometimes because certain subjects are considered too dangerous to speak of directly. From the Washington Post‘s Wonkblog, “New study: Snowden’s disclosures about NSA spying had a scary effect on free speech”:
….[I]t’s difficult to judge the effect of government-spying programs. How do you collect all the utterances that people stopped themselves from saying? How do you count all the conversations that weren’t had?
A new study provides some insight into the repercussions of the Snowden revelations, arguing that they happened so swiftly and were so high-profile that they triggered a measurable shift in the way people used the Internet.
Jonathon Penney, a PhD candidate at Oxford, analyzed Wikipedia traffic in the months before and after the NSA’s spying became big news in 2013. Penney found a 20 percent decline in page views on Wikipedia articles related to terrorism, including those that mentioned “al-Qaeda,” “car bomb” or “Taliban.”
“You want to have informed citizens,” Penney said. “If people are spooked or deterred from learning about important policy matters like terrorism and national security, this is a real threat to proper democratic debate.”
Even though the NSA was supposed to target only foreigners, the immense scale of its operations caused many to worry that innocent Americans were getting caught in the dragnet. A Pew survey in 2015 showed that about 40 percent of Americans were “very” or “somewhat” concerned that the government was spying on their online activities.
The same survey showed that about 87 percent of American adults were aware of the Snowden news stories. Of those people, about a third said they had changed their Internet or phone habits as a result. For instance, 13 percent said they “avoided using certain terms” online; and 14 percent said they were having more conversations face to face instead of over the phone. The sudden, new knowledge about the surveillance programs had increased their concerns about their privacy.
Penney’s research, which is forthcoming in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, echoes the results of a similar study conducted last year on Google Search data. Alex Marthews, a privacy activist, and Catherine Tucker, a professor at MIT’s business school, found that Google activity for certain keywords fell after the Snowden stories were splashed on every front page. Both in the United States and in other countries, people became reluctant to search for terrorism-related words such as “dirty bomb” or “pandemic.”…
The Wikipedia data suggest that the Snowden revelations had a noticeable impact on people’s Wikipedia behaviors, says Penney. “I expected to find an immediate drop-off in June, and then people would slowly realize that nobody is going to jail for viewing Wikipedia articles, and the traffic would go back up,” he said. “I was surprised to see what looks to be a longer-term impact from the revelations.”…
Of course people will find a way around the Forbidden Terms — people always do, whether it’s Siberian nomads referring to Grandfather (Bear) or devout Jews not speaking the name of their god — but wasn’t there a time when “Watch what you say, watch what you do” was righteously mocked as un-American?
NotMax
Shoot. Didn’t realize it was “Open A Can Of Worms Day.”
The tempus sure does fugit.
:)
Keith P.
Sure enough, Saturday afternoon, I just woke up from a nap and went to the bathroom when “ring, tap-tap-tap”. Damn house investor knocking on my door AGAIN. I told her I just woke up, that I’m exhausted from all the people knocking on my door every day of the week, AND SHE WOULDN”T LEAVE. “Oh, I’ll put you up in an apartment,” etc when my response is just “I’m tired, I can’t handle these constant interruptions PLEASE.”
So I changed the sign on my door from “PLEASE DO NOT KNOCK ON THE GLASS” to “NOT TAKING VISITORS”. God help the next son-of-a-bitch who rings that doorbell without a badge.
NotMax
@Keith P.
There’s got to be an app that plays the sounds of vicious, snarling dogs which could be activated by the doorbell.
Just a random thought.
Frankensteinbeck
Egads. A relentless campaign of lies and wild misrepresentations designed to scare people, pushing well known emotional buttons, succeeded in scaring people!
Major Major Major Major
I looked a lot like Snowden and was flying out of Honolulu with a few laptops the day that the story broke. That was… interesting.
BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: I’ve got that app, it’s called Nikki*.
*Nikki is a Cocker Spaniel.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Fortunate time, eh?
Technocrat
Its funny how the surveillance issue hits different people. My gut clenches when a city cop is driving behind me. But the idea of my web traffic going into some NSA lockbox fazes me not at all. On an abstract level I think I should worry about it, but it just doesn’t register on the ol’ lizard hindbrain.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@NotMax: I think Ferris Bueller invented that app.
guachi
I work at the NSA. You know how much effect Snowden’s activities had on my use of Wikipedia and Google? Zero.
You know how much effect it should have on yours? Zero.
Technocrat
@guachi:
Of course that’s what you WOULD say!
;=)
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck: Mass surveillance is a big theme in TV shows nowadays.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Technocrat: Pretty feel the same way.
Baud
@NotMax:
Have you searched for the BJ App?
Mnemosyne
@Keith P.:
If it gets bad enough, you can call the cops on her. She’s harassing you at your home, which makes her a trespasser.
Major Major Major Major
@BillinGlendaleCA: you know it.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: don’t search for “BJ app”.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I did, but it got caught by my porn filter.
Germy
from crooksandliars.com
trollhattan
@Keith P.:
Is a house investor someone looking to buy and flip? Echoes of 2005.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
I’m not surprised. Worry about government overreach, particularly in law enforcement, is a traditional liberal concern. Paranoia of a government sponsored crushing of white conservatives in favor of black and brown people is a conservative obsession since Obama’s election. You’ve got a huge audience that takes up most of the population there.
Technocrat
@Major Major Major Major:
Nope. The results are safe as houses, surprisingly. Apparently “BJ’s Restaurant” forms an unintentional bulwark against oceans of filth.
divF
@guachi:
How times have changed. I remember going to mathematics professional meetings 25 years ago, and you could always tell the folks from the NSA by the fact that their badges only had their names on them, without any institutional affiliation. Now they own up to who they work for wherever they appear.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Pretty sure he’s in Texas–stand y’alls ground!
Omnes Omnibus
Per Twitter, Daniel Berrigan has died.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
To be fair, often the TV shows show the cops using mass surveillance to catch the bad guys.
Gelfling545
Feeling guilty. My younger daughter had to take her father to the hospital where he is unconscious and, they say, will likely die tonight. He wanted no medical intervention at all & she is trying to keep him from being hooked up to machines and being bullied by medical personnel who are treating her as if she is killing him personally. Now for a lot of his life he has been a truly miserable SOB. My older daughter hasn’t spoken to him in 20 years and he made himself the sort of life no one would want to cling to. That Suzanne kept contact was more a tribute to her compassion than his fatherly affection. The doctor keeps insisting to her that his wishes shouldn’t be respected because “it’s probably depression” which even if it were he would never in any lifetime have treated so then what? Feeling like I should do something as I got her into this, after all.
BillinGlendaleCA
OT: If any of you have newer Samsung phones(SG6, SG7, or Note5) there’s a lock screen replacement from Samsung that kinda interesting. It’s called Good Lock and available from the Play Store or the Samsung Store. It kinda, sorta works on my Note Edge; with a few minor incompatibilities.
Germy
@guachi:
You must make a lot of money. I was shocked when I learned how much Snowdon was making.
Everywhere in this country we’re told belt-tightening is an unfortunate fact of life. We all have to accept the fact we must do with less and less. There’s no money for this, there’s no money for that… our cities are deteriorating, our school houses are rotting…
Technocrat
@Baud:
My daughter is a college student in Philly. I’d pay good money to have a satellite tasked to her 24/7.
NSA, TAKE NOTE
Agorabum
The problem is that people say they are concerned. But then they also say they are concerned about terrorism. And the real problem is, if you ask them ‘should we stop collecting this data if it increases the chance of a successful terrorist attack by just 1%’ I still think most people would say to collect that data.
I wish it wasn’t so.
Germy
@Omnes Omnibus:
Let’s see how much attention that gets in the media… When I saw your comment, I googled him. Nothing. Wikipedia acknowledged his passing, briefly.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: Well, at least it will be a break from standard political fight these days! I did laugh, though, when I saw the thread title. Since I had just read eemom’s comment – how the hell did we go from a lovely thread about a meet up to the same old shit? – it was particularly funny. (paraphrased)
Kind of like changing the subject from religion (too controversial) to abortion.
scav
@Gelfling545: Any medical person said that to me about my taking care of a family member, and I’d ask them what soft of bonus the drug companies and hospital CEOs are paying them to pretend they know him better than I do and to hook him up to expensive boxes with patented stuff running through his veins for a few billable hours.
RandomMonster
Whew! I was worried that as the Bernie campaign winds down, there wouldn’t be something new to fight about. And here we are with a fresh Snowden story!
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@Baud:
So are superheroes.
WaterGirl
@scav: Note to self: do not fuck with scav.
James Hare
@Germy: IT workers cost money. The government is always going to have high paid workers. Obama makes $400,000 on top of the house and government transportation/food/medical care. We could save a bunch more money ending the drug war than stopping anything the NSA is doing. It would also safeguard our civil liberties a great deal more. The DEA was running its own PRISM style program long before the NSA. Nearly every truly terrible civil liberties ruling was made about a drug case. People get all up in arms about the NSA but forget they gave up all those privacy rights long before to support policy that has made drugs more available, more potent and cheaper.
But let’s demonize the NSA. They’re the real villains-not the congress that signs off on spying by all kinds of government agencies.
If there’s on issue where “both sides do it” is true it’s the destruction of civil liberties in the name of the drug war. Even Obama’s nominees are TERRIBLE on the fourth amendment. Clinton’s will probably be even worse.
Gimlet
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-04-11/obamas-doj-sets-back-justice-with-asset-forfeiture-program
April 11, 2016
Attorney General Loretta Lynch quietly reinstituted the Department of Justice’s Equitable Sharing Program recently, which incentivizes local authorities to more harshly prosecute cases in order to take advantage of asset forfeiture laws, allowing these local departments to confiscate personal property they believe is related to criminal activity – including cars, boats and cash – without trial or any due process beyond even suspicion, and share those seizures with federal authorities.
Cacti
Defeating the fascist that will be representing the GOP has me feeling pretty “meh” about Moscow Eddie these days.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again):
You mean like Baud!?
guachi
@Germy:
I should clarify by saying I’m in the military working at the NSA. Which actually makes me a part of CSS not the NSA. Same building, same job, different pay scale. Although if I were a civilian there would still be a difference between those on government pay scale and contractors. Was Snowden a contractor?
As a 14-year E-6 I make $63,272 per year. I’m not sure if that makes me rich or not. There is so much free stuff in the military, it’s hard to compare, really.
To get back to NSA monitoring, I’ve never met anyone I worked with who cared one whit about what random Americans did or said. We have endless training that basically boils down to “don’t spy on Americans”.
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Have we yet figured out if Baud is a superhero or supervillain?
Cat48
The NSA doesn’t bother me that much either. I worked for the Fed Govt in 3 different agencies. They’re just doing their jobs. I really dislike leaks that involve our Defense.
pat
@Gelfling545:
This is why everyone needs an advanced medical directive.
eta: having trouble coming up with the exact terminology, but it states what you are willing to have done to you in your final days…..
Technocrat
@WaterGirl:
I think people can argue about anything. Some of the bitterest debate I’ve ever seen was in an Android versus iPhone thread.
divF
@guachi: Snowden was working for Booz Allen Hamilton (a contractor). Contractor employees make more money (see Blackwater Security in Iraq).
Baud
@Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again):
Elect me to find out.
Baud
@Technocrat:
To be fair, that’s an important issue.
Technocrat
@Baud:
lol. Not even going there. How about a safer topic, like whose religion is correct?
Mike R
@pat: A will is also a very good idea. Recently watched the battle between hospitals and nursing homes, along with relatives to grab the last bit of anything of value from a long time friend. Good grief people can be such greedy shits.
Baud
@Technocrat:
The Baudists!
Technocrat
@Baud:
President-Prophet Baud? I like it!
Mnemosyne
Is “Becky with the good hair” a Beyoncé reference? Because I’m starting to see it popping up everywhere.
/unhip middle-aged white lady
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Mnemosyne: it’s actually a Baud! reference.
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@Baud:
Hmmm…That’s an intriguing proposition.
scav
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Have we ever seen both of them in the same thread together?
Gelfling545
@pat: oh he has that. He’s made it clear. They just don’t care. This is a small hospital-lite in a small town in the NY southern tier. And while it’s not even a Catholic hospital they actually tried to persuade her to their point of view on religious grounds. Sigh. We’ll see what the night brings. Her husband is out there now and he is the sort of person people don’t like to mess with. He’s not large or aggressive, he just has a look, so maybe it will be better for her now.
Chris
@Baud:
Heck, James Bond’s done it twice in a row now. (Once with Julian Assange as the bad guy, once with the NSA as the bad guy, fair’s fair).
Mnemosyne
@Gelfling545:
I’m assuming you’re too far away to get there yourself. Do you think some yelling at them by phone might help?
ETA: And, hello, shouldn’t the religious view be, “He’s in God’s hands now”? That sure as hell is the approach when a pregnant woman comes in with a life-threatening condition that will kill her if they don’t abort the fetus.
bobbo
I would say roughly the time after Joe McCarthy and before Ari Fleischer.
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne: Yep. From what I read, some C-List celeb (designer Rachel Roy) seemed to be taking “credit” on Instagram for being ‘Becky with the good hair’, the woman Beyonce told some cheating guy or other to go call in one of her new Lemonade songs. This got TV food-person Rachel Ray a whole ton of unwarranted social-media-assaults, because typos and/or people who had never heard of the designer. Between the Beyonce audience and the Rachel Ray audience, a considerable chunk of celeb-friendly media has a new meme…
pat
@Gelfling545:
That is appalling. I think there’s also something called a durable power of attorney. Next week I will remember (finally!) to file mine with my hospital.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Baud: that’a why I stick to The Gilmore Girls and Buffy. Rory and Spike aren’t complicated.
Chris
@Gelfling545:
Ugh, I am sorry she’s going through that.
My grandmother died last summer from something that could have been handled by a pacemaker, but she didn’t want one because it would simply have been kicking the can down the road a few months (she’d reached the age where it was becoming one medical crisis after another). Since the family is at least moderately religious, one of the things I was most grateful for is that all of her children accepted the decision and that none of them, not even the fundiegelical right winger, tried to guilt-trip her on “you can’t do it, it’s suicide and Jesus says that’s a sin!” grounds. It was going to be hard enough without any of that bullshit.
The doctors tried to talk her into a pacemaker, but she made herself clear enough that they knew better than to hector my aunts. Yours don’t sound like they have that amount of common sense.
Gelfling545
@Mnemosyne: as the ex wife (ex about 30 years now) I don’t get to say much. If it goes on much longer she’s going to give a lawyer friend a call. I said to her that if they believe in heaven you’d think they’d want to let him go there if he’s being “called home” as they say.
different-church-lady
There will be less paranoid ranting in private email? Yeah, that’s a downer for our society.
I limit it to private email, because there most certainly was no chilling effect on paranoid public ranting whatsoever — in fact, there was quite a bump.
debbie
@Anne Laurie:
That cheating guy would be her husband, Jay Z. Also, more than one woman has stepped forward claiming to be Becky. Oops, Jay.
different-church-lady
Worrying that you’re going to get locked up because of your Google history is the libertarian equivalent of being against estate taxes because one day you might be rich.
boatboy_srq
I actually recall it being righteously mocked as communist. But it is 2016 – and to a certain segment of the population, everything left of Kochistan is communist.
WaterGirl
@debbie: I think I saw something like that in a TV show. Even the lovers he’s cheating with get cranky when they find out they’re not the only one he cheats with.
edit: raise your hand if you would be so proud to be “becky” that you would want everyone to know. (my hand is not raised)
debbie
@WaterGirl:
And yet Lemonade was released through his company. Guess that’s preferable to a golf club over the head,
Technocrat
@debbie:
LMAO! Heck, can you imagine the tension before the album was released?
B: “So, you cheated on me??”
J: “..Yes”
B: (deep breath) “Ok, I’m going to write some songs now, and release them to 20 million people”.
That’s gotta be a sleepless night.
WaterGirl
@debbie: Maybe he never bothered to watch it or listen to it? Or maybe you’re right. Wasn’t it the golfer’s wife who smashed a car window with the golf club?
boatboy_srq
@Gelfling545: Dumb question, but did her dad have advanced directives or a DNR filed? If so, and those documents are readily available, brandishing them in the MDs’ faces will hold them back for a while.
Don’t count on them being honored without a fight, though: physicians seem compelled these days to go to whatever lengths to keep a
corpsepatient breathing. I have a friend who lost her grandmother (cardiac arrest). Grandma had a DNR on file with her PCP and her attorney, and had copies distributed to her kids. Heart attack one brought the ambulance and my friend’s dad (her son); mid-heart-attack-two, my friend’s father was asked at the hospital by the attending physician whether as her son he wanted to override her DNR and have the hospital administer “lifesaving procedures.”Also, sad to say, since the patient is a guy and your daughter is not, her insistence on his wishes will carry less weight just because of that.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gelfling545:
Just be there for her. Wishing strength to your daughter, and a peaceful transition to her father, no matter what demons he had to battle.
SiubhanDuinne
@Germy:
It’s amazing, innit? He and his brother were such towering figures for so many years during the anti-war movement of the ’60s/early ’70s.
May he RIP.
Roger Moore
@pat:
The problem is that hospitals are often really bad about obeying the patients’ wishes, even when they’re properly recorded and everything. The doctors feel perfectly comfortable bullying the patients’ relatives into ignoring them, probably because there’s no punishment for doctors doing so. Once the relatives say yes to heroic measures, they’re unlikely to turn around and complain about the doctors, and I guess there’s a “no harm, no foul” attitude when the patients’ relatives resist. Until the doctors actually get in trouble for urging relatives to override the patients’ wishes, it will continue.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Yes, it was Tiger Woods. She made her feelings known!
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: This burns me up. Who the hell are doctors and nurses to insinuate themselves into that decision, especially once it has already been made by the person whose life it is. Once again, no consequences for the powerful. (Doctors in a hospital have more power than patients & relatives.)
WaterGirl
@debbie: Good for her! If you’re gonna cheat, you get the consequences. My mom always said not to do something if you would be ashamed if it was made public.
Mnemosyne
@Gelfling545:
Oh, the only “say” I’m thinking of is, “Shut up and do what my daughter tells you.” Sometimes having an extra voice to repeat the same thing, at more volume, can be helpful.
J R in WV
@Gelfling545:
My Grandma was 93 and had an intestinal blockage, which they did surgery to remedy the moment she hit Methodist Hospital. She was so old they couldn’t suture the wound closed, so they just covered the wound with plastic, like Saran-wrap.
She was medicated, and so a little woozy, but all the grandkids and surviving children were there. We all agreed that no further surgery or meds other than to keep her comfortable were to be undertaken.
My aunt had to get a lawyer and meet with hospital management to keep that surgeon’s hands and knives off Grandma. She was ready to go, and we were willing to let her go. The Doctor wasn’t, until the lawyer spelled things out for him. He went away, she died, and we had a sweet funeral – six grandkids, some of the folks were upset that one of us was a woman, they hadn’t seen a female pall-bearer, but Ann could carry the weight, and we all knew it.
You should encourage his kids to do what he wanted them to do. Whatever that was, it was his concern, and the doctors, unless they can in good faith say they can send him home in good shape, should do as they are told. When MRs J was in MICU for over 3 weeks, I saw several families dealing with life support and ending it. None of the families that ended life support regretted it. The family came around, paid their respects, and the life support was shut off late evening, with death shortly after in the wee hours of the night.
People who couldn’t do that were miserable, because the ICU can keep a corpse seemingly alive for months. No telling how long you have to wait… miserable.
Best wishes for it to work out well for your kids, which is all that counts now.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@guachi: You mean Snowden was lying?!?!
Unpossible.
Cheers,
Scott.
frosty
@Gelfling545:
From my perspective, dealing with my mom, that’s it. Period the end. Regardless of what the docs, nurses, or family members might think. His choice, his end, and I hope I get the same courtesy when the time comes.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I am sure a commercial product infamous for it’s dumb downed black and white morality is the perfect form forum to discuss complex national security issues.