[lbo-talk] Hands off my metadata

Bill Bartlett william7 at aapt.net.au
Wed Jul 3 15:08:45 PDT 2013


I think the answer is simpler than that even. The reason I don't get too bothered about it is that I've been a left wing activist for a lot of my life. So I take it for granted I'm being spied on. My father was a member of the communist party, so being spied on was just how it was and how it has always been for me.

All this modern-day jabber about "a right to privacy" is something I've always taken to be utter nonsense.

I gather you were brought up under similar circumstances? However, we need to appreciate that most people, at least in countries like Australia and the USA, don't have this cultural background. They have always assumed that the government is not spying on them, so it probably comes as a bit of a shock to them to discover the truth. And the the poor saps can be forgiven for being a bit upset to realise that all of their dirty little secrets might have been pored over by dim-witted secret police thugs for years.

Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas

On 04/07/2013, at 2:15 AM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:


> CB : Yet still, I simply can’t bring myself to being up in arms over it.
> After a considerable amount of reflection,the reason came to me. As a
> majority in many cases and a plurality in almost all cases, we have
> already given it away…willingly."
>
> [WS:] I can think of a very different and much simpler reason - it does not
> really matter. It is all fearmongering and creating scary looking shadows
> that have little connection with reality. I am not more scared by
> Snowden's "revelations" than by the "Blair Witch Project" movie
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blair_Witch_Project. In both cases, the
> audience is shown some vague hints and is told to be scared, but not much
> really happens.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list