Only 1,000 new names per day?
Seems legit.
At that rate theyâll hit their intended target of 7 billion in no time
Well, as long as they donât do anything that will reveal their sources and methods, everything else will work out fine because preserving government secrets is the only thing that matters, right?
Right?
the government⌠would inevitably have to expose its methods and sources if it explained at a public trial why Mohamed was put on the list.
Guess they should have thought of that little detail while developing their procedures, huh? Oh well, live and learn!
If information is about them, itâs âSources and Methodsâ that have to be protected.
If information is about you, itâs just âmetadataâ, no problem, collect the whole set.
Does anyone else know the scene in the Knights of Badassdom where Peter Dinklageâs character takes mushrooms and says shit like,
âI can hear the breeze on my skin. 'Tis burnt orange. There is electricity in the air.â
⌠right before attacking a succubus in a LARP festival?
Why the fuck has reading the daily news become like that?
Presumably, thereâs some overlap but itâs astonishing how many people in the US are on the naughty list and so theyâre precluded from exercising some or all of their rights.
1.5 million people are suspected terrorists
2.2 million are currently incarcerated
4.8 million are on supervised parole
10 million are undocumented immigrants
65 million have criminal records
Reveal methods and sources? Maybe.
Worst of all, though, would be the loss of face. Constitutionally unacceptable.
Tell the kids that just because mom or dad grounded you, thatâs no reason to report them as terroristsâŚbut seriously, paranoia and fear are ways to functionâŚ
If we donât overthrow these scumbags soon, weâre fucked.
Somewhere back down the line, we were asleep at the wheel and somehow took the turn-off marked âOrwellian/Kafkaesque dystopia this wayââŚ
âUnless youâre over 60, you werenât promised flying cars. You were promised an opressive cyberpunk dystopia. Here you go.â (from here)
For some reason, the SF I was reading in the 80s and 90s was mostly Golden Age stuff⌠I guess because the libraries I had access to werenât in rich suburbs or schools and thus had older booksâŚ
And I guess that probably means Iâm more inclined to pissed-off disillusionment, eh?
Only about 20 years.
I started on Clarke, Lem, and other hard-sf. And many obscure often Russian authors.
So I can hear you a bit too well when it comes to the disillusionment.
Reading the R&D reports brings a similar effect. Instead of excitement over new things on the market it is a disappointment that it took so long, and irritation over missing features that would be so easy to add.
That reminds me; I recently realised Iâd indefinitely put off starting Asimovâs Foundation series back in the day, having read as much of his other stuff as I could come acrossâŚ
I should probably get stuck into it before WWIII kicks off and/or I get thrown in jail for sedition.
I was promised flying cars in my cyberpunk dystopia.
On the other hand, wars are said to be 1% of utter horror and 99% of utter boredom. Jail time is also mostly boring; if (when?) I get there, I have a reading list so long Iâll get out before I get to its half. Plenty of time to read then. Better play with stuff and learn the useful skills.
Iâm curious as to what the actual process is by which names/records get added to the list if itâs a 99% acceptance rate. It seems thereâs some submission process by third party intelligence agencies and law enforcement groups that are almost always simply accepted. Based on the numbers, Iâm guessing mostly as a result of NSA metadata. The FBI helpfully says that âInclusion on the watchlist is based on specific criteria,â and thatâs it. They also say that thereâs a difference between the number of records and number of people on the list, as each alias or name variation gets its own record (in 2008 they claim 1 million records but only 400K names). If this is really 1.5 million records added, then it might as little as âonlyâ 600k separate people, or if itâs truly separate names, it could be 3-4 million added records. I suspect itâs the former (just because the latter seems unmanageable). Either way itâs clearly a pretty a wide dragnet. Iâd not be surprised if they added people based on having simply traveled to particular countries [âYouâve been to X and Y? Youâre on the list!â] or being X degrees of separation via family or friends from someone else on a list.
Youâre assuming that youâll be allowed reading material. Or reading material other than Bibles and missionary stuff. Or, if not just Bibles and missionary stuff, that it would include anything as seditious as SF/F.
