Jamming The Box
JAMMING THE BOX
The American Civil War had another name that was used to describe it. History buffs know that it was also called “the war between the states.”
That term was barely used during the conflict; however, after many
years, both the “civil war” and “war between the states” were
interchangeable.When I presented “America the Dutiful,” there were a few listeners that understandably thought that the program was there to malign police officers and the necessary work that they do for their respected communities.
For the record, the show was not at all about that. The show was simply presented as a mirror to the culture which has been well-cultivated in the United States. A culture of paranoia and fear that has resulted in a “war between ourselves” and the penchant for the brainwashed to be misgoverned and made to goosestep behind those who make laws and policies that are unconstitutional.
While many of the talk show breed can create an instant show based on the infringement of Second Amendment rights, there needs to be equal time devoted to Fourth Amendment obstruction.
The Fourth Amendment can immediately be dismissed based on the fears of most Americans that organized criminal activity and terrorism is at our doorstep, thus indicating that the battlefield is right here within our borders and that the hysteria that has been created is making us all stupid and unreasonable.
The truth is hard for people to swallow. The real criminal activity is in plain sight and that is the activity that has decimated the constitution. Gun crimes make the headlines solely for the purpose of opening dialogue about gun control issues and the infringement of the Second Amendment. It appears that there is a pandemic of such cases and there is a reason.
The reason is that the spotlight on these types of crime creates a psychological or reactionary bias that is meant to generate a solution that is literally forced on people. When you are bombarded with stories of gun crime, hate crime, racially charged attacks and the like you are mislead into believing that the solution is more police, more surveillance, more wiretapping and all of the other ideas that are unconstitutional.
Richard Davis, for the Deseret News, writes in “Despite what you may think, crime rate is down“:
“The problem is, the image of a nation beset with crime doesn’t quite fit reality. In fact, crime rates today are much lower than they were 30 years ago. The overall crime rate is less than 60 percent of what it was in 1980. Despite the growth in population in the United States over the past 30 years, there are actually fewer crimes committed now than in 1980.
In fact, crime rates are lower across the board than in the past. Today, the murder rate is half what it was in 1980. The rate for forcible rape was nearly 43 incidents per 100,000 in 1992. Today it is 27. The rate of robberies reached a high in 1990 with 639 incidents per 100,000 people. Today, the rate is nearly half that. Non-violent crime, such as burglary or theft, also has declined. The number of burglaries fell from 3.7 million in 1980 to 2.2 million.”
These statistics can be repeated ad nauseam and will be rejected by those with political agendas that are demanding more surveillance and stricter laws.
It all goes back to the idea that, in the United States, authorities are forfeiting reality for the potential of severity. In the United States it is not at all beyond the norm to discuss risk assessment. Risk assessment is what we use to plan for unforeseen circumstances or circumstances that have a potential of creating a problem. It is also prudent to discuss if existing measures used to control severity or risk are effective or adequate.
However, today we are seeing that our government – by the so-called consent of the governed – are justifying that use of illegal wiretapping, gun control, and forfeiture of due process in order to fight the open-ended war on terror.
We are beginning to see who the enemy is and it is not from outside, it is from inside and it is being perpetuated by the military industrial complex and politicians that use the “war argument” as a tool to claim that there is an immediate danger or a unique threat to the country.
We all know that danger and risk are a part of our existence. There are really no guarantees that safety is foolproof, but there is a conspiracy of overreach in the United States and it will be a hard sell for the American people to understand that this is a dangerous move in our history.
I can’t help but wonder if the television show has a kernel of truth in its plot device. The television show gives us a look into the world of the panopticon surveillance apparatus where the government seeks to use a surveillance network without the knowledge of the people. This network is used to manipulate events, terminate opposition and deceive the people. This is the government in front of us and the spying devices are in places that we didn’t expect.
Not that it is surprising that spying devices are being used on the American people, but up until now it was cloaked from prying eyes, or from those that depended on the mainstream media to tell them that it is all real and not the product of crank conspiracy theory.
I had a discussion with a co worker that asked me if I was going to talk about the release of the PlayStation 4 console. I told him that I wasn’t following video game news and he said that if I were to investigate the release of it I would see why it is such an important topic.
Well, I decided to look into it and, sure enough, I was able to read why the release of this video game console is important to the public. One of its selling points is that the PlayStation 4 will not spy on you. I wondered what that meant and did research on its competitor the new Xbox One game console. What I found was disturbing.
In 2010, Microsoft unleashed its technology known as “Kinect” which allowed full-body game play for many of its games. Kinect is literally a camera that is connected to the system to detect body motion and allow full-body movement in playing games, rather than hand-held controllers.
The idea was revolutionary and it was a unique way of playing games.
However, a 2012 Kinect patent was for the new Xbox One console, where the Kinect technology was built into the unit.
As ExtremeTech reported back in November 2012:
“Microsoft has filed for a Kinect-related patent, and it’s a doozy of an application.
The abstract describes a camera-based system that would monitor the number of viewers in a room and check to see if the number of occupants exceeded a certain threshold set by the content provider.
If there are too many warm bodies present, the device owner would be prompted to purchase a license for a greater number of viewers.
No, really. It’s that blunt. From the abstract:
“The users consuming the content on a display device are monitored so that if the number of user-views licensed is exceeded, remedial action may be taken.””
This means that the Microsoft “authorities” will be well aware of how many people are in your household, who is in your household, when they are watching television, what television shows they are watching, what videos they are watching, what games they are playing etc. If the authorities decide that the number of people in the room exceeds the license agreement of public viewing they will notify the authorities.
This means that Xbox One users are now under the same obligation to pay for viewing like bars that show pay-per-view fights or events. If there are too many people watching a film being played from the Xbox One console, they will declare it an ‘unauthorized public display’ and will notify the MPAA or RIAA of the violation.
The frightening thing about the Kinect camera is that it will always be ‘on’ in your home. This means that anything in front of the device can be recorded – both sound and video – and sent back to a database at Microsoft.
This fits the criteria of a surveillance device in the home. The reason the Kinect system remains ‘on’ is because it awaits a command from a user to say “Xbox on.” The question is: What’s the possibility that the command of “Xbox on” came from FBI, NSA, CIA or even local law enforcement – rather than the user?
It’s not possible to switch off Kinect’s microphone and the camera is infra-red, meaning it can “see” in the dark and through objects or even tape that is put over the lens to obscure it.
Now, as a consumer, you have the choice to not buy a surveillance device and not have it in your home. Also, as a citizen, you have the right to tell the government that they have no right to have similar devices or use similar methods.
Before you say that we can’t fight the surveillance state, a story out of Seattle gives a ray of hope to citizens who feel that government overreach is out of control.
As RT reports:
“Last week, Seattle’s The Stranger published an in-depth look at a little known new initiative taking place within the city that involved the installation of dozens of devices that would create a digital mesh network for law enforcement officers. The devices — small white-boxes equipped with antennas and adorned on utility poles — would broadcast data wirelessly between nodes so police officers could have their own private network to more easily share large amounts of data.”
“As The Stranger pointed out, however, those same contraptions were able to collect data on internet-ready devices of anyone within reach, essentially allowing the Seattle Police Department to see where cell phones, laptops and any other smart devices operating within reach were located.”
“The SPD said they had no bad intentions with installing the mesh network, but The Stranger article and the subsequent media coverage it spawned quickly caused the system to receive the type of attention that wasn’t very welcomed. Now only days after citizens began calling for the dismantling of the mesh network, The Stranger has confirmed that the SPD are disabling the devices until a proper policy could be adopted by the city.”
A proper policy?!
How about a “zero tolerance” policy to the police overreach that the Fourth Amendment prevents?
The police denied that they were using the system however anyone with a smartphone who wandered through the jurisdiction covered by the digital nodes could still notice that their devices were being discovered by the internet-broadcasting boxes.
Now, does anyone believe that this is necessary?
Is United States of America so riddled with crime that these justifies these extreme measures? Are American consumers willing to be spied upon just for the freedom of entertainment?
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