It's OBVIOUS that 'they' are gathering people's information, BUT WHY?

I was looking at some of the top topics on here, and saw quite a bit of people discussing the invasion of citizen's/people's privacy via the government, how everything that people do online is tracked and so on.. It's beyond obvious that there is an uncomfortably large interest in American citizen's habits, views, activity, and so on (yada yada I don't need to explain or go more in depth, as you are probably more than aware of what I am referring to).

The question is (and a seemingly important question when pertaining to the matter at hand, at that) is WHY are 'they' going to such extremes to track such information? How does tracking the overall internet activity of citizens benefit 'them', what reason are they doing this for? What are they gaining from attaining such information (such as people's activities, affiliations, views, thoughts, and so on)? I'd like to know your thoughts and theories pertaining to this.

I would have thought that was easy to understand, "they" are working out if you are someone who is likely to resist the NWO, and if you had the ability to do it, and how much influence you have in your community or circle of friends.

as far as i know, there is only one reason why people want information on other people in this fashion, in order to have it in case they want to use it against them.

reply to post by TheIceQueen


Power. Predictive models of what people will do, etc.

You really can't totally take it on from an intuitive, human level. The people doing this stuff left the human arena long ago, and are operating in a mathematical space now, where the more information they get the more they can predict the future, or so they believe.

But their model is fundamentally wrong, and is based on a very real fallacy about passive observation: the idea that what their doing is not effecting things, when in fact it is. Everyone in the nation who understood the Snowden revelations is changing their behaviour, based on what they heard. Every observation, at the end of the day, has its effects. People are committing themselves to resistance, where they never would have before. And the future is conflicted. All because of observations. Once the agencies see the creative power of observation and what they choose to observe, its over. Goodness will be. But we're not there. They need to suspect evil, suspect insurgency, and in their Orwellian efforts to find it, create it. That simply appears to be the place they are at, and they must be there, that in many years in the future they may realize their errors.

But I for one am zoomed in on the positive. I've seen some BEAUTIFUL math lately, and I know there are NSA dudes who would share my admiration at these phrases in the "poetry of pure reason" I've seen, I would love to talk to them. I know there are patriots in the system who love America, who love the freedom, who would share with me a prayer that it continues. Goodness is a force of nature in people, whether its on the street, in the military, or at the highest levels of the intel community. So lets all of divest of the idea that this game is simple, and some tard who gets the power is going to call the shots, is going to own us. The fact is, we are all already owned, by forces and moral principles much larger than us, and have been since the days of the Bible, the Gita, and all the rest.

Peace!

The more things change the more they stay the same, it looks like securest form of communication now is the good old pen, paper, envelope and a stamp.maybe the silver lining in all this is that the post office won`t go bankrupt after all, with all the letters people will be sending again.

Selling it to the highest bidders, of course.
Which are a Rolodex of all our favorite multinational conglomerate corporations.

I didn't see anyone mention it so I decided I would toss that in the mix.

reply to post by TheIceQueen


Why the gather information?

I don't know. To search for the next Antichrist? The next Messiah?

reply to post by TheIceQueen


They want total control of everyone, they want a police state, so they do these types things, and when people catch on they call them crazy and make people think they have lost it, but in reality they know exactly what they are doing and they are loving it! We need to seriously be concerned about our invasion, everyone needs to be very careful what they say around their cellphones, on the phone and through email.

As the wonderful Christmas song goes "gonna find out who's naughty and nice"

Originally posted by Tardacus
The more things change the more they stay the same, it looks like securest form of communication now is the good old pen, paper, envelope and a stamp.maybe the silver lining in all this is that the post office won`t go bankrupt after all, with all the letters people will be sending again.

I am all for letter writing, this is also why i don't do blogs, because someone out there may be reading them and taking them in a different context. I hand write all of my journals, so I know my thoughts are safe from these assholes. Unfortunately no one does the letter writing anymore and it would be sending a letter and never getting one sent back. We also should be careful what we say on facebook, if any of you have an account. They watch that closely as well. I have an account to keep in contact with my husband and friends but rarely post anything on there anymore.

reply to post by TheIceQueen


Why, is THE question isn't it? Everyone will postulate and try and say their 'reason' is the reason however, when you look at things our rulers in the US are saying you get a bigger picture.

Back in 2009 many news media outlets chimed in on President Obama's comments concerning "preventative detention'" The president was saying that it was outside the rule of law and how laws then needed to be changed etc to make it within the rule of law. www.nytimes.com...

In some countries preventative detention has been used to keep incarcerated someone accused of a crime, which sounds very reasonable... we even have certain preventative detention laws on the books in this country concerning this since the 1980's... that part seems harmless enough right? www.britannica.com...

But what happens when that gets expanded to those who 'might' commit a crime? That is the only reason changing laws concerning preventative detention would be necessary... how do we make it within the rule of law to detain someone who has NOT committed any crime...

cle.ens-lyon.fr...

From the Article the State of Surveillance, fear and control:

Criminal Justice Practices and the Development of Predictive Justice (MDM)

Since September 11, 2001, the objective of security, which is ever more present in political discourse in Europe as well as the United States, has transformed criminal law into a law of security based on the illusion that life can be risk free and legitimated greater limitations of individual freedoms.

Judicial review is illusory when it is not focused on the proof of guilt, but on a diagnosis of dangerousness and a prognosis of recidivism, which is a mere probability that, by its very uncertainty, precludes proving the contrary. While an accused is presumed innocent and benefits from doubt, dangerousness is necessarily presumed. After repressive, compensatory and restorative justice, we now have predictive justice. But can it still be called justice?

In the recently created French system of post-conviction preventive detention (rétention de sûreté), judges have little say. Instead, ad hoc commissions were created to make the decisions, but their composition is so diverse (psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, criminologists, prefects and victims' representatives) they have not been granted expert status.

When this so-called "preventive" measure becomes indefinite, even permanent, detention, it breaks completely with the rule of law. Dissociated from punishment as retribution, such deprivation of liberty serves neither the educational nor the therapeutic function that, according to international human rights law, legitimates interning minors and the mentally ill; nor is it similar to the short-term administrative detention of aliens who are being deported or extradited. It is purely a "social defense" measure of neutralization.

This raises an important issue. Based on pairing guilt with punishment, criminal law postulates free will, while pairing dangerousness with preventive detention negates itand may therefore lead to destroying criminal law. As Hegel put it, punishment is "a criminal's right" because by punishing him, "we honor him as a reasonable being". But "if we consider him merely a harmful beast that must rendered incapable of doing harm, or that we seek to frighten or change,"[1] we deny him that honor.

The point of the level of surveillance as we see it today does deal with predicting the future, but, as the article states we have "transformed criminal law into a law of security based on the illusion that life can be risk free and legitimated greater limitations of individual freedoms."

When you live in such a utopia - this idea that all crime can be prevented - constitutional rights simply do not matter.

"If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking ... is freedom."
Dwight D. Eisenhower

reply to post by tridentblue


Very interesting take on it, like quantum theory. The act of observing creates that which is observed. We're all a bunch of Shrodingers cats. Hopefully, when they open the box, we will be alive.

Thanks for the great responses, guys. I have my theories as to the answers of these questions, of course, but wanted to get the opinions/theories regarding it from others as well, particularly others that don't have their heads lodged too far up their own ass to see what is going on, which sadly includes most of society and it's people.

However, one thing that doesn't seem to add up to me is how such information is so easily leaked out, why wouldn't they keep their acts of invading people's privacy and so on more secretive (which they damn well easily could one would think or at least that they would be able to keep a tighter lid on it then what seems to be).

reply to post by OpinionatedB


The thing is, you can never be 100 percent safe, nor can you ever be 100 percent free. Even in prison, one can get raped, beaten up, or killed. But you can't have everyone be totally free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want - that doesn't work either when we are forced to live together as a society. The trick is, to strike just the right balance between safety and freedom. It is a very hard thing to do, and our society/government/leaders do struggle with that. I can't blame them for trying to prevent crimes - it's a noble goal, but striking that "sweet spot" of a balance seems to be an ongoing problem.

reply to post by kaylaluv


Even witches know what it means to be free.... their motto is if it harms no one then do as you please....

We do not have to give up freedom in order to be as safe as we can reasonably expect in a society. When living with others you have good and bad personages.Those bad personages however, cannot reasonably be detained because of what they 'might' do, only what they actually do proven within the rule of law.

When we get away from laws that punish and go into the realm of the preventative, law itself means nothing. When you can arrest someone for something they did not do, the law then becomes moot. In that case the law becomes an overbearing control mechanism and that leads to government abuses such as we saw in the Soviet Union where the preventative became a political tool.

Key here is "as safe as we can reasonably expect" There are reasonable expectations and unreasonable ones we cannot reasonably expect that no harm will ever come to us, or that we will all die safe and warm in our beds. The second we look to government or any outside agency to keep such an unreasonable expectation is the second we lost sight of life itself.

WHY was my favorite question as a kid, and it still is.

The main reason is obviously to be able to control dissent when the need arises. Since 911, that need has been quite considerable...

Originally posted by OpinionatedB


We do not have to give up freedom in order to be as safe as we can reasonably expect in a society. When living with others you have good and bad personages.Those bad personages however, cannot reasonably be detained because of what they 'might' do, only what they actually do proven within the rule of law.

Let's say a man, a very bad man, likes raping little boys. He has done it once, and has been to prison and done his time. Now he's out, and moves to your neighborhood, where you have a little boy. You have seen him sitting on his front porch, watching your little boy play with other little boys in your front yard. Sitting on one's porch is not against the law, correct?

Let's say this man has a previous M.O. of getting on kid's social websites before he moves on to the next step of going after a little boy. He doesn't do anything illegal on these websites - he just looks. But it gets him excited enough to move on to the next step. Would you want the government to monitor what he looks at on the internet, so they can see if he is starting to look at those websites? Do you want your little boy to be raped first before any action is taken? How do you think this situation should be handled if it were your little boy that he's watching? I know how I would like it to be handled if it were my little boy. I want the authorities to be watching every move he makes, including online. If he starts going on those kid's social websites, I want him gone.

Yes, I am responsible for my kid, but I don't want my innocent child to be kept in a virtual prison in order to make sure that guy doesn't hurt him. Why should my kid - who hasn't done anything - be the one locked away to be kept safe?

reply to post by TheIceQueen


Why you ask?? Control. Plain and simple.

I definitely agree that laws are needed, if there were no laws and thus no repercussion/punishment to ones truly harming actions then people would run even more of a muck x100 then they do now when they knowingly commit such things that could result in prison ('punishment').

However there is a far line between the ridiculous laws that we have that truly serve no other purpose but to overly control ones business that only effects them. If someone wants to partake in actions which can or will result in their OWN possible demise that is their choice however when its something that involves harming others that's where the law must come in.

Under the umbrella of "national security", the military industrial complex has morphed into the communications intelligence complex.

We are seeing the fruit of unchecked budgets of the DoD, State Dept., Intelligence, Energy and Homeland Security; contracts to cronies, family, and themselves (after retiring from public service and rushing to the private sector).

Invent a threat.
Fund a retaliation to the threat, via lucrative government contract awards.
Become rich.
Repeat.

Trample constitutional rights in the process, meh whateva...we are keeping YOU safe.