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

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Snowden filmmaker Laura Poitras: ‘Facebook is a gift to intelligence agencies’

Click here to access article by Andrea Peterson from Washington Post.

In this interview filmmaker Laura Poitras talks about the just released documentary Citizenfour, her concerns about government surveillance, the dangers of Facebook, and encryption codes to counter surveillance. In relation to the latter she remarks about the important role that the Freedom of the Press Foundation is playing to develop encryption codes.

I am bothered a bit about this article appearing in a major ruling class news source, but it offers some very interesting observations about these issues. I did a preliminary check of the Freedom of the Press Foundation and could find no evidence of direct or indirect ruling class funding.

Poitras's comment about Facebook being a gift to intelligences agencies has always seemed so obvious to me. Nevertheless I tried it for a brief period back in 2006, filled out information on myself that was completely fictitious, and concluded that it was indeed a gift to these agencies.