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Shortly after Bender closed down his magazine and organization he gave an interview to a local paper [in] which he asserted that he had been visited by "three men wearing dark suits" who had ordered him "emphatically" to stop publishing material about flying saucers. Bender said that he had been "scared to death" and that he "actually couldn't eat for a couple of days.". Some of Bender's former associates tried to press for a more satisfactory explanation, but to all questions he replied either cryptically or not at all.
Btw, government agents are actually very easy to spot: They can be recognised because they tend to look at you in a rather strange way when you wear your tin foil hat in public). They will then do their best to harm your reputation and discredit you, for example by spreading rumors that you're paranoid, delusional or otherwise not a very stable person.
And the origin of the information? A collection of contributing individuals.
...And I feel like a number
Feel like a number
Feel like a stranger
A stranger in this land
I feel like a number
I’m not a number
I’m not a number
Dammit I’m a man
I said I’m a man
lyrics by Bob Seger
Originally posted by DrBones666
I think you are right, and wrong. **Snip**
On the other hand, I think you're wrong in the sense to deny that "they" are indeed making files on a lot of subversive people, people that aren't towing the party line, so to speak. **Snip** I borrowed some dissident materials from the local library, where my ex girlfriends mother works, when she saw what I was borrowing, she said that they would probably put a red-flag in the system on me.
** Snip**
So even if we don't all have MIB's following us around, I would definately think that we would be on governmental listings as subversive or dissident, probably for posting on ATS even, (someone once called it A Tracking System,) also the fact remains "they" can monitor us very easily even without having some hired goons follow us around.
Originally posted by watch_the_rocks
To think we are all numbers is totally right. What do a few hundred governments care about the 6-7 billion people on this planet? Could you imagine half the planets population employed to keep tabs on the other half?!
Originally posted by Dock6
But as far as being a mere number is concerned, remaining as such is the smart option. Flying under the radar, honing the ability to blend with the scenery, enables one to quietly do quite a bit of righteous damage
Originally posted by NotClever
Gemwolf, don't ask why, I just thought some Seger went along good with your post.
Originally posted by Enkidu
Where do I find this number? Is it tattooed someplace I can't get a good look at, like the back of my head?
And if we get to pick our own number, I'd like 07734, so when you turn it upside-down, it'll read "hello."
Originally posted by Gemwolf
I'm not denying that some sort of government agency probably has some sort of Watchdog that keeps an eye on what kind of information is going round. What I'm questioning is how this information is gathered and what is done with it. Recently we saw the whole AT&T and NSA (?) debacle. This should tell us that the government does not have it's own means to watch Internet specifics. Why on earth would they need AT&T's database then?
Originally posted by Gemwolf
We know that Credit Card companies, insurance companies, etc. are watching our Internet behaviour. They do this through Spyware, Spiders, Yahoo, Google and all kinds of clever information gathering methods. All of this goes through processes, program code, data mining, etc. and little human interaction is needed. But in the end they are left with a whole lot of statistical information. This information is then sold to other people and at some stage you'll get some sort of add from the company. The point is that it can be done. No question about it.
BUT good luck trying to monitor all the information flow on the entire Internet on a personal basis. We don't have that kind of technology.
Originally posted by think2much
Now, back to my other point, of course the lesser evil (of information management) is not going to be following you personally around in an unmarked van, (usually! ) etc or that interested in YOU personally as to warrent any type of investigation or interviews about you or with you etc. You as the average joe paranoid are simply not going to warrant them wasting any actually resources/man hours in any type of such personal surveilance or attention....they actually don't know you exist or want to-
We are as you say Gemwolf, just a number.
Originally posted by think2much
LOL thinks you. I am not saying that they are monitoring all the information on the entire Internet on a personal basis, however do not be fooled into thinking certain technologies do not exist. Granted half of the people working for the government agencies they do would say certain technology does not exist or else their jobs would be easier-but really...well, not speaking about the Internet really, but in general, just don't think the "cat being out of the bag" about an issue is indicative of the depth of the issue, or technology involved or even if speaking of Internet, that the govt being in bed with Google or At&T is the extent of how far they are able, or have gone. It's just silly to think so. It's just what we are allowed to know/have managed to know.
Originally posted by nsawantsmedead
I like the thought on insanity. In all my reading I have pondered the absolute non stop paranoia that embodies some. I have always wondered about the chaos factor if two worlds mashed and everyone's worst fears would come alive just by having the fear itself or feeding off other peoples fears. Kind of makes sense if there was a person or thing that would do this for all of us so we would fear it and not ourselves. ...
Number 216 section 1296
Originally posted by Gemwolf
A bit of a belated reply...
Originally posted by Gemwolf
Reading your reply, I realise that we don't really differ in opinion. That was pretty much the point I was trying to make. Many ATS "average Joes" believe that the/a government is focussing all their time and energy into following and watching that single person, i.e. each and every "average Joe". We just differ a bit on the amount of Information we think they're keeping on each of us...
Originally posted by Gemwolf
Just to give myself some credibility to say that I'm not just making wild statements: I'm one of millions of IT geeks - and most of my projects include research and development of new technologies. That is we don't rely on technologies made by others, or "released" by the government. We get to make and think of new and shiny toys ourselves.
Originally posted by Gemwolf
Thus I'm aware of what can physically be done without defying any kind of scientific "law" and what kind of technology cannot be achieved with what we know.
Originally posted by Gemwolf
But then - what do I know? You don't know what you don't know, until you know what you didn't know.
Originally posted by Gemwolf
That said - I'm also aware of the handful of "super computers" with amazing processing power. And no one wants to let slip what exactly it is these computers do. And it's no secret that many of them are Government funded. We can only guess what they're up to. Do they have the processing power to watch all information flow on the Internet? Maybe - probably. Do they have the infrastructure? No.
Originally posted by Gemwolf
Remember that any flow in a process is only as fast as its fastest component. The USA may have the network infrastructure. And this is a big maybe. The UK - sure. But to bring it all together? Cannot be done. Not right now.
Originally posted by Gemwolf
Ah - you say they may have something I don't know about... Sure I can think up a few science fiction gadgets. How would I know what kind of cool gadgets any government is hiding from us... But it's not only the government that "invents" stuff. (Or did they really get the microwave oven from alien visitors?) If a technology was "invented" by the government it can and will be invented by someone else - in many cases the most unlikely suspect.
Originally posted by Gemwolf
But we're venturing to far from the topic. Apologies. The fact that the government doesn't know everything tells me that they don't know everything about all of us.
Originally posted by Gemwolf
Everyone has been avoiding the problems of crime, terrorism and missing persons, which the government(s) cannot control. Bin Laden is somewhere out there... Err... Bad example. A tower of conspiracy theories follows that one.
Originally posted by Gemwolf
Fact is, that there's just to many holes in the government's information base for me to admit that they know everything about me.
Originally posted by Gemwolf
But as I said, in the end we don't really disagree on this matter, do we? This topic is just too complex to explain in a couple of posts... I must admit that personally just jump from one thought to the other, as I'm not exactly sure how to put the huge information "conspiracy" into words.
Originally posted by Tha Troubleshoota
They look at open channels, such as phone and internet. They cast a net looking for "hits" and key words (for once the media is right) and if you "hit" several times *AND* make calls to people we don't like (you calling 1-800-Al_Hussein) then you'd get "tagged".
*MAYBE* just maybe at that point you would be bugged. *IF* they felt you were worth the effort. But like all police work, you'd have to make your case about bugging this person and doing "man-on" surveillance.
Originally posted by think2much
'flag and tag' certain things. (snip) You as the average joe paranoid are simply not going to warrant them wasting any actually resources/man hours in any type of such personal surveilance or attention....(snip)However in the information age, your number is useful in profiling you. All of the statistical data gathered is done so to feed the "information machine"
(snip)
.. and its not all about who is intersted in UFO's or conspiracy sites, or who checks out certain flagged books, but all of that helps add up to certain profiles when taken into consideration with other gatethered information.
Anyway, seems if a certain IP address is consistantly hitting certain hot spots, and or a social secuirty number is likewise linked to more than one particular flagged item, then that IP or SS# can be tagged for a computer to notice further flags of practices.
Perhaps it's just elevated to a level where it has met a certain criteria that one more flag in area 1, 2, oe 3 perhaps, will warrent the computer to mark it for being elgible for man hours to be approved for a human to review the information, and prioritize it manually, or deprioritize it, or otherwise classify it properly for the future in case it is tagged again for revue.
Originally posted by Gemwolf
Ah... That thread... I read halfway through it, and lost interest for reasons we don't need to mention here. I have my reservations about what is said about "the inside" but I'll leave that unsaid for now as well. (snip)
I would like to ask the "insider" person some of these questions, but I promised myself to leave the thread alone for more than one reason...