The problem with corporate structure is that if its profits start high, it has to maintain that level of profits plus an increase every year, just to fulfill its mandate as a corporation.
Since the Cable Corps started off with government subsidies and all sorts of legal privileges nobody else had, they started their life with high profits and grew steadily through the use of business methods unavailable to normal businesses.
Because of the basic mandate of all corporations that every year's profits must be larger than the year before, it is now impossible for the Cable Industry to go non-commercial without first discovering something that will maintain its current annual profit growth rate.
The only thing they can think of doing now is lower slightly the number of ads, charge more for each ad and raise the rates for customers, but to go non-commercial, they would have to raise their rates well beyond what anyone would be willing to pay for the crap they offer, in order to replace the ad revenue that is their life blood.
Think dinosaur. Think extinct.
Because they have but one goal - greater and greater profits - and because their "brains" are geared specifically towards that goal alone, they will die before their tiny brains know they have fallen.
"What's The Evidence Mass Surveillance Works? Not Much"
That depends entirely on what you expect from mass surveillance.
If you're talking about catching bad guys, and preventing crimes and harm to the American public, then you would be correct in your answer above - Not Much.
But if you're talking about rooting out dissent, blackmail, coercion, industrial and commercial espionage, and controlling the narrative by insuring people in high places play by your rules, then there is much evidence that mass surveillance is eminently successful.
"...it would be trivially easy for campaigns to just clear musical choices with artists first..."
Except that this route would give the artist the chance to say NO, which would probably look bad for the abusing politician if he chose to use the music anyway.
Not clearing the use of the music with the artist avoids this possibility altogether.
"Real ones, at least. It's OK to stop fake ones that you create for your own purposes."
As I said above.
"Create "terrorist" attacks and you create the need for a Surveillance State."
Stopping one of the fake "terrorist" attacks the FBI is so bad at constructing from whole cloth, is actually neither "stopping an attack" or "stopping a terrorist", since the victim of such phony FBI stings are usually brain damaged idiots and not in any way real terrorists, and the planned attack was entirely fictional and never intended to be carried out. Even the explosives are phony.
If the Five Eyes had not recruited mercenaries from all over the world to fill the ranks of ISIS for a publicly visible Saudi based Terrorist Army, the only terrorist attacks left would indeed be the ones manufactured by the FBI.
And since those are so obviously phony, nobody in the USA or anywhere else would be hiding under their bed any more.
By having its terrorist army murder lots of people in France, the Five Eyes have renewed the public terror level and created a situation where all of their planned global surveillance and crowd control operations will be instantly publicly approved, if not outright publicly demanded, for a while.
It was a superbly evil, but strategically timely move.
Truth is however, that the more often they do this sort of thing, the less time the effect of terror on the public will last, meaning that 5-Is will necessarily have to do this sort of thing more often, if they continue blowing up only non-Five Eyes nation's citizens.
Which is of course, the entire purpose of ISIS.
When ISIS begins using US-made drones to target churches and schools in the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Britain, you will know that the Five Eyes has finally decided to drop the other shoe and put the world to war.
Considering the level of escalation that the France Bombing displays, this should likely not be too long from now.
After all, the old farts running the Five Eyes want very much to enjoy the fruits of their labors before they are too old to get it up any more.
The Surveillance State must ALWAYS fail to stop "terrorist" attacks, because "terrorist" attacks are the very thing that make the Surveillance State appear to be necessary to the terrified public.
Remove "terrorist" attacks and you remove the need for a Surveillance State.
Create "terrorist" attacks and you create the need for a Surveillance State.
What a great tool they made when they financed the creation of ISIS. Without a visible terrorist army to do their bidding, it may have taken years to break the American Public's desire for strong encryption here in the USA.
But with merely a few million US dollars sent to Saudi Arabia, for arms, the Five Eyes has put their best tool to its best use and in one foul swoop, put an end to many, many things that were causing it some grief, such as Syrian Immigrants, strong encryption, cyber-warfare, mass surveillance, and so much more.... which will now be demanded by the truly stupid people (republicans, racists, politicians, kings of industry, lords of the lands, police, etc.) of the USA, and allow the escalation of the Five Eyes base plan to enter stage three.
And as a bonus, they got to punish the French (fries) for all their refusals to be a team player and for continually refusing to pay their dues to the Five Eyes for protection against terrorist attacks.
I sincerely hope that Judge Bertelsman has no underage or gay skeletons in his closet, because I foresee an unmarked plain brown envelope appearing in the dead of night at his home residence soon, containing photo evidence and transcripts of every single misdeed or immoral act he has ever done during his entire life - compliments of the CIAF BINSADOJ.
After all, we cannot have the most lucrative political scam (business model) in 50 years being ended simply due to the sense of justice of one silly non-team-player judge.
Looks like its once again time to put the Five Eyes Surveillance Industry results to work, doing what it does best - blackmail - make that man a team player.
"Only a matter of time before people start getting sent to re education camps for the violent thoughts they harbor towards those running things."
What you are referring to has already begun.
It will eventually be called the War on Radicalization, but it is indeed a war against dissent.
One of the primary purposes of war is to re-educate the next generation in the beliefs "the state" need them to hold true, while eliminating the youth who no longer believe the lies, through mutual extermination in a politically designed conflict with another nation who's owners need to do the same with their dissenting youth.
It is called "culling the herd".
As soon as you see your first hollywood movie about how children are being radicalized through their connections on the internet, by evil, silver tongued, non-Christian fanatical, religious terrorists, you will know the newest "war-on" is in full swing.
Thereafter, it will become a serious crime to say, write, or post online, anything un-nice about billionaires, millionaires, lawyers, politicians, police, military brass, and/or the CEOs of industry.
Shortly after that, the Internet will become Channel Zero, Zero, One, point #, and you'll need an electronic identity card to browse through the unlimited walled gardens of deceptive advertisements, false promises and online shopping catalogues.
Of course, if you're really rich, you can get a $50,000.00 annual VIP Citizen ID Card that is guaranteed anonymous, which lets you access the hidden Ownership Society Internet (OSI), where you can; among other things, purchase quality drugs of all sorts, direct from the factory/farm, and participate in inter-active child porn, and snuff films to your heart's content.
The future looks bright for those at the top of the food chain, in the United States of Hollywood.
"The government seems to really like other people's money and the power that comes with the positions, but has nearly no enthusiasm for accepting the additional responsibilities that come with the territory."
Exactly what one would expect to see if the US federal government had been taken over by criminals, or businessmen, or both.... but hey, everyone knows that aint possible, cuz "it can't happen here".
America is under the direct protection of GAWD, after all.
"...described a hypothetical in which twin brothers rob a bank and steal $10,000... first brother could use his money to hire a lawyer...."
This entire "logic" states quite plainly that ;
1.) "Innocent till proven guilty", no longer applies to Americans, and that the state can treat all Americans as if they were presumed guilty until they can prove their innocence, and that;
2.) lawyers are what counts in determining guilt or innocence in American Courts, not evidence, so if you're poor, you're guilty, and if you're rich, you're not, regardless of any evidence that might be presented.
Taken together, it is a plain language admittance that Justice has left the country, stage left.
Maybe its just me, but that sounded like a multi-million dollar a year extortion racket, where the DEA gets a single judge-on-the-take to OK its activities and make them appear to be somewhat legal so it can chase down drug dealers and others and steal their possibly ill-gotten gains via asset forfeiture legislation.
I have to wonder just how much the judge receives in kick-backs for his co-operation. He should be really close to sealing the deal for that retirement chalet in Spain by now.
American Justice, fascism style.
You really gotta love the way the so-called "good guys" use tax payer's money to compete with the so called "bad guys" for all that untraceable drug cash, made possible by the "good guys" War on Drugs contraband inflation of what would otherwise be dirt cheap substances.
"...that it tells U.S. technology firms about the most serious flaws it finds more than 90 percent of the time."
Just a note.
This statement does not actually mean that 90% of exploits found are reported.
It merely states instead that 90% of "the most serious flaws" it finds are being reported.
Depending on their criteria for "seriousness", this could easily mean that only 1 of every 1000 exploits it finds are actually considered to be "serious", and that only 1% of those "serious flaws" are actually considered to be "most serious", turning that 90%, into actual reporting of found flaws to anywhere from .01% to .0001%, very quickly.
They are masters of speaking without saying anything.
The world just got royally raped and the authorities say its our fault.
Never cooda seen that one coming eh. :)
Fascism is kinda like the flu. At first, it just makes you sorta sleepy, and then before you know it, you want to die.
Simplest reality: if we let them get away with this bit of chicanery, we are all forever fucked, and there aint no going forward after that, until after it all falls apart.
The Merchant will be King once again, and the world will once more become a commodity, traded back and forth by the Billionaires until once again, it all comes apart - just the ruins of one more human civilization crumbling back into dust, among all of those before it.
And it will indeed be our fault. It always is. It will apparently, always be so.
Because we prefer the pretty lie to the ugly truth.
On the post: TV Industry Starts Running Fewer Ads To Combat Netflix, Cord Cutting
Darwin srikes again.
Since the Cable Corps started off with government subsidies and all sorts of legal privileges nobody else had, they started their life with high profits and grew steadily through the use of business methods unavailable to normal businesses.
Because of the basic mandate of all corporations that every year's profits must be larger than the year before, it is now impossible for the Cable Industry to go non-commercial without first discovering something that will maintain its current annual profit growth rate.
The only thing they can think of doing now is lower slightly the number of ads, charge more for each ad and raise the rates for customers, but to go non-commercial, they would have to raise their rates well beyond what anyone would be willing to pay for the crap they offer, in order to replace the ad revenue that is their life blood.
Think dinosaur. Think extinct.
Because they have but one goal - greater and greater profits - and because their "brains" are geared specifically towards that goal alone, they will die before their tiny brains know they have fallen.
---
On the post: What's The Evidence Mass Surveillance Works? Not Much
Matter of perspective...
That depends entirely on what you expect from mass surveillance.
If you're talking about catching bad guys, and preventing crimes and harm to the American public, then you would be correct in your answer above - Not Much.
But if you're talking about rooting out dissent, blackmail, coercion, industrial and commercial espionage, and controlling the narrative by insuring people in high places play by your rules, then there is much evidence that mass surveillance is eminently successful.
---
On the post: The Paris Attacks Were An Intelligence Community Failure, Not An 'Encryption' Problem
Major Typo!
Shouldn't that read:
"The Paris Attacks Were An Intelligence Community Success, creating the appearance of An 'Encryption' Problem"
---
On the post: Ted Koppel Writes Entire Book About How Hackers Will Take Down Our Electric Grid... And Never Spoke To Any Experts
How the Internet Stole Our Rights
Hooda thunk it? :)
---
On the post: The Paris Attacks And The Encryption/Surveillance Bogeyman: The Story So Far
How easily the veneer of civilization falls away.
"French Authorities Identify Body of Suspected Ringleader of Paris Attacks"
"Suspected Ringleader"
We don't need no stinking due process or proof no more.
And if it turns out somewhere down the road that the French learn that he was not the mastermind and did not even participate in the attacks.... meh!
----
On the post: Okay, Now A Survivor Member Really Did Sue Mike Huckabee For Using 'Eye Of The Tiger' At Kim Davis Rally
the path of least resistance
Except that this route would give the artist the chance to say NO, which would probably look bad for the abusing politician if he chose to use the music anyway.
Not clearing the use of the music with the artist avoids this possibility altogether.
---
On the post: As Predicted: Encryption Haters Are Already Blaming Snowden (?!?) For The Paris Attacks
Re: Re: The New World Order
As I said above.
"Create "terrorist" attacks and you create the need for a Surveillance State."
Stopping one of the fake "terrorist" attacks the FBI is so bad at constructing from whole cloth, is actually neither "stopping an attack" or "stopping a terrorist", since the victim of such phony FBI stings are usually brain damaged idiots and not in any way real terrorists, and the planned attack was entirely fictional and never intended to be carried out. Even the explosives are phony.
If the Five Eyes had not recruited mercenaries from all over the world to fill the ranks of ISIS for a publicly visible Saudi based Terrorist Army, the only terrorist attacks left would indeed be the ones manufactured by the FBI.
And since those are so obviously phony, nobody in the USA or anywhere else would be hiding under their bed any more.
By having its terrorist army murder lots of people in France, the Five Eyes have renewed the public terror level and created a situation where all of their planned global surveillance and crowd control operations will be instantly publicly approved, if not outright publicly demanded, for a while.
It was a superbly evil, but strategically timely move.
Truth is however, that the more often they do this sort of thing, the less time the effect of terror on the public will last, meaning that 5-Is will necessarily have to do this sort of thing more often, if they continue blowing up only non-Five Eyes nation's citizens.
Which is of course, the entire purpose of ISIS.
When ISIS begins using US-made drones to target churches and schools in the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Britain, you will know that the Five Eyes has finally decided to drop the other shoe and put the world to war.
Considering the level of escalation that the France Bombing displays, this should likely not be too long from now.
After all, the old farts running the Five Eyes want very much to enjoy the fruits of their labors before they are too old to get it up any more.
You may want to get used to saying "Hail Hydra".
---
On the post: As Predicted: Encryption Haters Are Already Blaming Snowden (?!?) For The Paris Attacks
The New World Order
The Surveillance State must ALWAYS fail to stop "terrorist" attacks, because "terrorist" attacks are the very thing that make the Surveillance State appear to be necessary to the terrified public.
Remove "terrorist" attacks and you remove the need for a Surveillance State.
Create "terrorist" attacks and you create the need for a Surveillance State.
----
On the post: As Predicted: Encryption Haters Are Already Blaming Snowden (?!?) For The Paris Attacks
The right tool for the job.
But with merely a few million US dollars sent to Saudi Arabia, for arms, the Five Eyes has put their best tool to its best use and in one foul swoop, put an end to many, many things that were causing it some grief, such as Syrian Immigrants, strong encryption, cyber-warfare, mass surveillance, and so much more.... which will now be demanded by the truly stupid people (republicans, racists, politicians, kings of industry, lords of the lands, police, etc.) of the USA, and allow the escalation of the Five Eyes base plan to enter stage three.
And as a bonus, they got to punish the French (fries) for all their refusals to be a team player and for continually refusing to pay their dues to the Five Eyes for protection against terrorist attacks.
Its gonna be a long memorable winter.
----
On the post: Judge Pushes Burden Of Proof Back On DEA Agents Who Seized $11,000 From Traveling College Student
Pictures of Match-stick men...
After all, we cannot have the most lucrative political scam (business model) in 50 years being ended simply due to the sense of justice of one silly non-team-player judge.
Looks like its once again time to put the Five Eyes Surveillance Industry results to work, doing what it does best - blackmail - make that man a team player.
---
On the post: US Official Admits That Following Terrorist Attacks, It Starts Arresting People Based On Ideology To 'Get Them Off The Streets'
Mayday In America
Omigawd!!
Somebody finally noticed!!??!!??
Naw. Must be a typo.
The eternally incorruptible and blessed saints of the US federal government would never allow fascism to take over the USA.
No way.
Can't happen here.
America is immune to anti-democratic ideologies.
Ask any American.
Must be a typo.
---
On the post: DEA Boss Joins FBI In Declaring 'Ferguson Effect' To Be A Real Thing; Offers Up 'Stuff I Heard' As Evidence
Re:
What you are referring to has already begun.
It will eventually be called the War on Radicalization, but it is indeed a war against dissent.
One of the primary purposes of war is to re-educate the next generation in the beliefs "the state" need them to hold true, while eliminating the youth who no longer believe the lies, through mutual extermination in a politically designed conflict with another nation who's owners need to do the same with their dissenting youth.
It is called "culling the herd".
As soon as you see your first hollywood movie about how children are being radicalized through their connections on the internet, by evil, silver tongued, non-Christian fanatical, religious terrorists, you will know the newest "war-on" is in full swing.
Thereafter, it will become a serious crime to say, write, or post online, anything un-nice about billionaires, millionaires, lawyers, politicians, police, military brass, and/or the CEOs of industry.
Shortly after that, the Internet will become Channel Zero, Zero, One, point #, and you'll need an electronic identity card to browse through the unlimited walled gardens of deceptive advertisements, false promises and online shopping catalogues.
Of course, if you're really rich, you can get a $50,000.00 annual VIP Citizen ID Card that is guaranteed anonymous, which lets you access the hidden Ownership Society Internet (OSI), where you can; among other things, purchase quality drugs of all sorts, direct from the factory/farm, and participate in inter-active child porn, and snuff films to your heart's content.
The future looks bright for those at the top of the food chain, in the United States of Hollywood.
---
On the post: Government Ducking Even More FOIA Requests By Refusing To Ask For Official Legal Guidance
G.et A.nything W.ith D.ollars
Exactly what one would expect to see if the US federal government had been taken over by criminals, or businessmen, or both.... but hey, everyone knows that aint possible, cuz "it can't happen here".
America is under the direct protection of GAWD, after all.
---
On the post: Supreme Court Examines The Sixth Amendment Ramifications Of Pre-Conviction Asset Seizures
The New American Way
This entire "logic" states quite plainly that ;
1.) "Innocent till proven guilty", no longer applies to Americans, and that the state can treat all Americans as if they were presumed guilty until they can prove their innocence, and that;
2.) lawyers are what counts in determining guilt or innocence in American Courts, not evidence, so if you're poor, you're guilty, and if you're rich, you're not, regardless of any evidence that might be presented.
Taken together, it is a plain language admittance that Justice has left the country, stage left.
----
On the post: Time Warner Promises To Adapt To Cord Cutting With Fewer TV Ads, Gets Punished By Wall Street For It
No brainer.
TV was Free to the public, because the commercials paid for it.
Now that we must pay for TV, the commercials no longer have any right to be there at all.
Either make TV free, and keep the commercials, or charge for TV and remove all commercials, completely.
or...
Any channels that have commercials become free and any commercial free channels are paid for by the public.
Simple.
---
On the post: DEA Running Massive Wiretap Program Almost Entirely Through A Single California County Courthouse
Re: Nothing changes
Its always nice to know that others can actually see through the smoke and mirrors, and recognise the truth.
Its even nicer when its a quote from the past that has already proven true.
---
On the post: DEA Running Massive Wiretap Program Almost Entirely Through A Single California County Courthouse
The Untouchables V1.2b
I have to wonder just how much the judge receives in kick-backs for his co-operation. He should be really close to sealing the deal for that retirement chalet in Spain by now.
American Justice, fascism style.
You really gotta love the way the so-called "good guys" use tax payer's money to compete with the so called "bad guys" for all that untraceable drug cash, made possible by the "good guys" War on Drugs contraband inflation of what would otherwise be dirt cheap substances.
Its pure political poetry.
---
On the post: NSA Pats Self On Back For Disclosing Vulnerabilities '90% Of The Time,' Doesn't Specify How Long It Uses Them Before Doing So
Bafflegab at its finest.
Just a note.
This statement does not actually mean that 90% of exploits found are reported.
It merely states instead that 90% of "the most serious flaws" it finds are being reported.
Depending on their criteria for "seriousness", this could easily mean that only 1 of every 1000 exploits it finds are actually considered to be "serious", and that only 1% of those "serious flaws" are actually considered to be "most serious", turning that 90%, into actual reporting of found flaws to anywhere from .01% to .0001%, very quickly.
They are masters of speaking without saying anything.
---
On the post: Full Text Of TPP Released: And It's Really, Really Bad
Re: TPP in a single PDF
---
On the post: Full Text Of TPP Released: And It's Really, Really Bad
The cycle of life on earth.
The world just got royally raped and the authorities say its our fault.
Never cooda seen that one coming eh. :)
Fascism is kinda like the flu. At first, it just makes you sorta sleepy, and then before you know it, you want to die.
Simplest reality: if we let them get away with this bit of chicanery, we are all forever fucked, and there aint no going forward after that, until after it all falls apart.
The Merchant will be King once again, and the world will once more become a commodity, traded back and forth by the Billionaires until once again, it all comes apart - just the ruins of one more human civilization crumbling back into dust, among all of those before it.
And it will indeed be our fault. It always is. It will apparently, always be so.
Because we prefer the pretty lie to the ugly truth.
---
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