We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Government giving AT&T, others secret immunity from wiretap laws

Click here to access article by Natasha Lennard from Salon.

This piece shows that the ruling One Percent, who operate what passes as "our government", is already doing what CISPA would make much easier for them to do--spy on us. In other words, our masters want to streamline surveillance over our private lives by enacting CISPA, but if that law fails once again, they will spy on us anyway--it will be just much less convenient. 
One of the major privacy concerns fueling opposition to CISPA is that the legislation would permit the private sector to acquire and search sensitive data relating to U.S. citizens between corporations and the government. However, according to government documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), such personal data sharing and surveillance is well underway already, while CISPA is yet to come up for a Senate vote.