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www.aljazeera.com
June 30, 2013
As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama promised transparency and open government yet his administration is one of the most closed governments in US history, described as being worse than even the Nixon administration.
The technology and information revolution allows the government to cast its net wider than ever before; collecting data, watching, spying and analysing. As revelations of systemic snooping continue to hit the headlines, Empire asks: who is watching the watchers?
Just when more people open up about their private lives through social media, the government becomes ever more intrusive.
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Empire: Empire of Secrets
AlJazeeraEnglish on Jun 30, 2013
Joining us as we unpack some of the known unknowns are Oscar-winning film director Oliver Stone, and war reporters Jeremy Scahill and Richard Rowley. We unravel the psychology of secrets with psychiatrist Justin Frank, the author of Obama on the Couch and Bush on the Couch. We look at the impact of state secrets brought to light with Dana Priest, a leading Washington Post investigative reporter on national security and author of two books, including her most recent Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State. We are also joined by Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and an attorney representing Julian Assange and Wikileaks; as well as Evgeny Morozov, an expert on internet and privacy issues, and author of two books: The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom and his most recent: To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism.
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Updated: July 16, 2013
AlJazeeraEnglish on Jul 16, 2013
As revelations of systemic snooping continue to hit the headlines, who is watching the watchers? Watch this additional footage about America’s Empire of Secrets.
see
If It’s All Kosher, NSA, Why Lie? by William Boardman
Socialism 2013–Glenn Greenwald: Courage is Contagious + Transcript
William Blum: Snowden Would Be Better Off in Cuba, Less Chance of a Coup D’état
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As per Morozov’s “The Folly of Technological Solutionism.”
I am reminded of Jacques Ellul’s ‘The Technological Society’, and it’s ultimate message, which I offer here in my own phraseology:
Technology carries it’s own global death sentence. And even though we don’t know the zero-hour, we do know the timer is already set and ticking.
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