Hi, Alea:
After having written a much longer (yes, even longer than this one) post about America’s militarism (and my recent reading of Andrew Basevich’s wonderful book/indictment, Breach of Trust,) AB decided to time-out and “disappear” my response.
AB may be a helpful critic, come to think of it, if a bit heavy-handed.
Suffice it to say that I am (broadly speaking) a communitarian who never has and never will support the “militaryindustrial” complex. I opposed both Iraq War I and Iraq War II. I’m fairly close to a pacifist. Not quite… but, think about it: who opposed Iraq War I?
Pretty much all the militaristic abuses and excesses you cite… I find either appalling and/or corrosive to America’s long-term interests. I don’t know how the President sleeps with Gitmo still open. When it comes to drone strikes, I’ve criticized them as an example of “clean-fingernails”/techno-warfare. (I think, though, that you have to ask the question: What’s the option when dealing with distributed terror groups?)
And… I see no conflict with being committed to community and being supportive of common sense measures to protect one’s country. You may see a conflict there. For me, there’s a theme.
The kicker there is “common sense.”
If you’ve studied the mandate of the NSA—and I have—you’ll understand that it is a broad one. The Agency hasn’t, as some would have you believe, gone rogue. It’s gone where policy makers have pushed it.
And despite what some of our representatives now claim (because they do the usual distract and divert when something is potentially embarrassing to them), the Agency has done it with the full knowledge of Congress, FISA courts and privacy ombudsmen within the Federal Government.
The truth is… or so I believe… America has slept for decades. We slept right through 9/11. And learned the wrong lessons. We chose to go after Iraq… based on cooked information and a NeoCon agenda. And, unfortunately, too many have decided that the political process is too corrupted (or corrupting) and thus leave “public life” to a rogue’s gallery of extremists or utter nut-jobs, like my own state’s Sen. Ted Cruz. And I should add that I, too, have disengaged from the political process.
It is facile to blame the NSA. And it is, in my opinion, wrong-headed. Get involved with the political process. Insist on accountability. Or just be another voice in the “chatocracy” who claims a principled position, but does nothing to advance it in practical terms.
Change of direction is possible. But it doesn't happen when one confuses blog entries with action.
But… let’s focus on Trusted Computing because that was the crux of the post you responded to.
My argument was with Richard Stiennon’s hypothesis that those who are convinced that the NSA is spying on them (or will soon be)… are the right group to kick-start adoption of Trusted Computing.
I think Stiennon has it absolutely wrong. That “group” bears striking resemblance to those who have long claimed that Trusted Computing is a tool of The Illuminati. And, yes, Alea, those folks are wing nuts. If you haven't checked out Prison Planet or about a dozen other such sites, do so.
The segment of folks who are utterly convinced that the U.S. IS The Panopticon (or rapidly becoming one) have long ago gotten the memo that TC is just another government instrument. (They haven’t gotten the memo—and wouldn’t read it any case— from Infineon’s Joerg Borchert and from a handful of researchers from around the globe with whom I spoke with at the recent conference… that the standards have not been corrupted, that the NSA has had a passive role, and that one reason you have open standards is that there is a community to check the work for flaws.)
Privacy groups (including a faction within the German government) are the ones that effectively hamstrung TC right out of the gate: by making certain that TPMs shipped “off” by default. That in turn resulted in one’s having to go into BIOS to switch it on: a trip that consumers, as a rule, won’t ever take. And IT Administrators don’t want to have to take.
While there may not be complete overlap between the NSA-bashers and the long-term TC-haters, there is far more similarity than distinction.
My point was modest: It’s the wrong market to “jumpstart” TC adoption. I was criticizing Wave… because they’re the ones who put up the blog post giving a nod to Richard’s concoction.
Best Regards… and Be Well,
c m
| 