Snowden and the general NSA uproar

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit I didn't pay close attention to the Snowden situation earlier this summer.  Although this was partly because I was insanely busy (bread and circuses = how to afford decent food and "can I find paying work?" ... the poverty form of population control : P ), mostly it was because nothing I was hearing was surprising me.

I've known that the NSA and others had that level of capability for years -- and have been using it -- and that they (organizationally / generally, although obviously not in every individual case) are proud and self-righteous about it to the point of anti-rational, self-congratulatory insularity.  And I say "they" properly, in the plural, because noone should assume it's just the NSA, nor (especially) should anyone assume it's just the government(s of the world).  Any decently successful mafia and many international corporations also hire out, or have branches of, information-acquiration.

Also not news was that some vocal part of America somehow thought Snowden was being unpatriotic.  I continue to hope these people are merely loud rather than being a significant demographic force.

What *was* news to me all summer was how very many people, by their reaction, had no idea this surveillance had been going on.

Kudos, btw, to The Oregonian for running a set of articles on the Sentinel Project back in the early 90s.  I knew most of what they exposed before that (happily for any eventual court case, I have NO memory of how I already knew it ... my amazing skillz (not! : P ) at retaining ideas but not names/who is finally useful!), but it was a comfort to see it get some mainstream press.

And always remember, that everything the gvt tells us officially about its scary capabilities, information or physical violence, is olde news ... enough other nations/power-centers know it already that keeping it a secret isn't pointful, and there is already something else, bigger/better, in its place that they want to distract us from.

testing

testing a new format for longform essays. this post is merely so that I can test visual setups.