Surveillance Capitalism: How Google and Facebook Use Your Data to Exploit Your Inner Demons

Soshona Zuboff on Surveillance Capitalism

VPRO (2019)

Film Review

This documentary features Harvard Business School Professor Shoshona Zuboff, author of the popular book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.

Zuboff begins by emphasizing that most of the data tech behemoths like Facebook and Google collect on us is unrelated to what we actively post on their sites. They and the companies they sell our data to are far more interested in the information we reveal inadvertently (ie our online contacts and purchases, the games we play, our geographic location, and the time we spend on specific sites).

By making their Android operating system available free to smartphone manufacturers, Google successfully captured 90% of the mobile phone market. This, in turn, enables them to capture phenomenal amounts of location-based data (linked to the phone’s GPS function) from Android-based smartphones. Google also collects personal information from the hidden microphones (that were never disclosed to users) on Google Nest, an Internet-based security system.

Collecting this type of metadata on hundreds of thousands of individuals enables complex algorithms to make surprisingly accurate predictions about our psychological state. Tech companies use these predictions to create what Zuboff refers to as “lure modules” – which they sell to a range of online and offline businesses. Their purpose is to increase “click-throughs” for on-line merchants and “footfalls” for brick and mortar outlets.

The Pokemon Go game is the best known experiment using a popular game to lure players to offline locations to spend money. Although marketed by a so-called startup called Niantic, Pokemon Go was developed over many years using Keyhole, a software program created by the CIA that Google purchased to create Google Earth.

Employing similar algorithms, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg flaunts his company’s capacity to monitor-moment to-moment mood shifts in more than six million Australian teenagers. This, in turn, enables advertisers to predict when they need a confidence boost (eg by buying your product).

Zuboff also cites the case of Cambridge Analytica, which purchased Facebook data depicting the “the inner demons” of 80 million Americans in 2016. The British company would use this data to develop targeted messaging to trigger Facebook users, where to click, what to read, and who to vote for.

Making Sense of 9-11

Solving 9-11: The Original Articles, Volume II

By Christopher Bollyn (2019)

Book Review

Investigative journalist Christopher Bollyn makes a very strong case (the first that really makes sense to me) that 9-11 was primarily orchestrated by Israeli intelligence, via dozens of commercial enterprises they have established in the US. Assisting them in the conspiracy and coverup were various Bush administration Zionists (many with dual US-Israeli citizenship) and non-Zionists who saw some political advantage or profit for themselves or their corporate sponsors.

Is It Anti-Semitic to Say Bad Things About the Mossad?

The mainstream media has repeatedly accused Bollyn of anti-Semitism for making these claims. However, in my view, his sources are impeccable. Moreover I can find nothing in the book to suggest he harbors any particular hostility, prejudice, or negative stereotypes against the Jewish religion or people.

The evidence Bollyn presents in these articles (written between 2012 and 2019) can be roughly divided into three categories: 1) the well-documented level of infiltration of US government and commercial operations by intelligence-linked Israeli companies specializing in high tech communications and tracking software, security services and haulage 2) the key role played by Zionist Jews (many with dual US-Israeli citizenship) in crafting the US defense initiative to invade seven countries in five years (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran)*  and 3) the long term, openly stated ambition of Israel’s Likud Party (which came to power in 1977) to provoke a Middle East war on terror in that would enable them to significantly expand the territory under Israel’s control.

Bollyn also provides a number of articles about the military grand nanothermite (aka superthermite) explosives that, according to detailed evidence compiled by the Architects and Engineers for 9-11 Truth, were the true cause of the collapse of Buildings 1,2, and 7.

Owing to its complexity, I’ve divided my review of Solving 9-11 into two parts. Part I will cover the issue of US government and commercial infiltration by intelligence-linked Israeli software, security, and other companies and the infiltration of the Bush administration by pro-Israel Zionists. Part II (which I will post tomorrow) will cover the history of the Israeli terrorists who founded the Likud Party, their longstanding call for a War on Terror to expand Israel’s boundaries, and their well-documented expertise in false flag terrorism.

Infiltration of US Systems by Intelligence-Linked Israeli Software Companies

The extent of Israeli infiltration of US government computer systems was first exposed by whistleblower Indira Singh in 2005 (see  9-11 Whistlerblower Ground Zero Testimony) Singh was originally hired by JP Morgan to evaluate Ptech software.*  According to Singh, the FAA, NORAD, and US Air Force experienced computer systems failures on 9-11 that significant hampered the US ability to scramble fighter jets to intercept the hijacked aircraft.

Singh maintains the Secret Service, FBI, Pentagon, both houses of Congress, the Treasury, IRS, Navy, CIA, Department of Energy, IBM, and Booz Allen Hamilton all had Mossad-controlled Ptech software on their computer systems in the early 2000s. Other intelligence-linked Israeli companies selling communications and tracking software to government agencies include Amdocs, Verint, Nice Systems, Orckit, Bogen Communications (which used text messaging to warn 4,000 Israelis employed at the WTC to stay home on 9-11), and Transtech Control Limited. The notorious “Israeli art students” who tried to gain access to the DEA and other restricted government sites in 2000 and 2001 were employees of Nice Systems.

Since the 1990s federal agents have reported systemic security breaches at the Justice Department, FBI, DEA, State Department, and White House. Several were directly traced to Verint and Amdocs, which have formed the backbone of US domestic surveillance.  In 2008, former CIA case officer Robert David Steele stated in Counterpunch, “Israeli penetration of the entire US telecommunication system means that NSA’s warrantless wiretapping  actually means Israeli warrantless wiretapping.”

Transtech mainly produces control and monitoring software systems for airports. In 2001, their client list included dozens of US civilian and military airports.

Israeli Owned Moving Companies and Security Firms

The involvement of Mossad-linked businesses in 9-11 isn’t limited to computer systems. There are also numerous intelligence-linked Israeli owned moving companies operating in the US – Israeli intelligence uses them to illegally enter US military bases. The most prominent is Urban Moving Systems, which employed the “five dancing Israelis” who filmed the 9-11 attack from New Jersey. The five men were arrested a few hours later with multiple passports and thousands in cash. Although two were known Mossad agents, they were held for ten weeks and sent back to Israel for visa violations.

Another intelligence-linked Israeli company, International Consultants on Targeted Security (ICTS), was responsible for security at Logan, Newark and many other US Airports on 9-11.

Likewise an intelligence-linked security company Kroll and Associates was in charge of security at the World Trade Center. Bollyn believes this allowed them advance access to Buildings, 1,2, and 7 to nanothermite charges responsible for a series of explosions (reported by multiple witnesses – see 911 Whistleblowers) responsible, ultimately for the collapse of these buildings. .

Israeli-Owned Junkyards

In the aftermath of 9-11, two Israeli-owned junkyards were hired to cart away the evidence, with much of the steel being shipped to Asia to be melted down and some debris being trucked to junkyards in northern New Jersey. Only one US company was involved in the clean-up, which under normal circumstances should have been handled (at no additional cost to the taxpayer by the Army Corp of Engineers.

Pro-Israel Zionists in the Bush Administration

Bollyn identifies about a dozen pro-Israel Zionists who played some role in 9-11. Among the most prominent:

• Alvin Bernard (Buzzy) Krongard, who was CEO of Alex Brown until 1998 and CIA executive director from 2001-2004. Alex Brown was the financial advisor for Scitex, an Israeli company that managed the stock offerings for the private companies created by military intelligence. Alex Brown was linked to most of the insider trading in airline stocks that occurred on Sept 10, 2001.
• Ronald Lauder, president of the Zionist World Jewish Congress, headed the commission under Governor George Pataki promoting the privatization of the World Trade Center (up until July 2001, the WTC was owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey)
• Ron Silverstein, who owned Building 7 and had a 99 year least on Buildings 1 and 2. Silverstein, held a regular weekly call with Netanyahu. Silverstein is on record as ordering Building 7 to be “pulled.” According to a speech he subsequently gave in Israel, he began planning for the Building 7 rebuild in April 2000.
• Zionist dual national Michael Chertoff, who headed the Criminal Division of the Justice Department on 9-11. It was Chertoff’s decision to release the Ground Zero crime scene without any forensic investigation, allowing the remnants of the collapsed steel rods and beams to be shipped to Asia to be melted down. He also ordered the release of scores of Israeli terrorist suspects who were arrested after 9-11.
• Ari Fleischer – as press secretary to President George W Bush, Fleischer crafted the president’s narrative around 9-11 and the War on Terror up until July 2003. At the time of 9-11, Fleischer was co-president of the Zionist group Chabad’s Capitol Jewish Forum.

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*Reported in 2007 by former NATO commander retired General Wesley Clark. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw

**Ptech’s current software is a modified version of the Promis “case mananagment” software developed by Inslaw in the late seventies. Journalist Danny Casolaro’s investigation into Inslaw, Promis, and the alleged “backdoor” that enabled the US to spy on countries it sold Promis software to would lead Casolaro to be “suicided” in 1991.

 

Obama: A Legacy of Ashes

Obama: A Legacy of Ashes

James Corbett (2017)

Film Review

In his excellent documentary about Obama’s presidency, James Corbett highlights important ways in which Obama systematically reduced civil liberties and democratic oversight of government.

• After promising to end George W Bush’s de facto lawmaking via unconstitutional signing statements, Obama far signing statements than his predecessor.
• He repeatedly inserted text into bills without informing lawmakers before they voted on them.
• After promising to end the role of lobbyists in running government, he allowed Citibank to select his cabinet and the insurance lobby to write The Affordable Care Act.
• While claiming to run the most transparent administration in history, he set a record for denying Freedom of Information Act requests and prosecuting whistleblowers.
• Despite promising to end illegal wiretapping and spying on activists, he greatly increased routine NSA surveillance of ordinary citizens. He also introduced legislation repealing Posse Comitatus* and authorizing indefinite detention of American citizens without trial. And issued an executive order granting himself the power (which he exercised liberally) to arbitrarily assassinate his enemies, including US citizens.

Obama was also the only president in history who was continuously at war during his entire eight years in office.** All but two (which he inherited from Bush) were illegal and unconstitutional wars he launched without government approval.

I was intrigued to learn the Patriot Act (enacted by the Bush administration after 9-11) was originally written by Obama’s vice president Joe Biden in 1995.

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*The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act prohibited the US government using federal troops in domestic law enforcement, except in circumstances expressly authorized by the US Constitution.

**In addition to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which candidate Obama promised to end), he launched illegal wars of aggression in Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

J Edgar Hoover: A Textbook Case in Corruption

This is an intriguing documentary about J Edgar Hoover, founding director of the FBI. It’s largely based on an official federal investigation that occurred shortly after Hoover’s death in 1972 and Anthony Summer’s 2013 book Official and Confidential: the Secret Life of J Edgar Hoover.

The film explores Hoover’s long track record of both low level and high level corruption. The former involved his routine use of FBI employees to drive him to private functions and to remodel and redecorate his home, as well as the routine use of taxpayer funds to pay for private vacations. The high level corruption involved his close association with Mob figures to fuel his (illegal) offtrack betting habit.

Hoover was notorious for his refusal to investigate or arrest organized crime bosses during his tenure of office. He consistently maintained the US had no national organized crime problem. This was the major cause of his three year battle with John and Bobby Kennedy – which ended in the JFK assassination.

The documentary also reveals how Hoover forced Kennedy to accept Lyndon Johnson as his running mate, by threatening to release surveillance tapes the FBI had made of JFK’s extramarital affairs.

Hoover undertook this type of illegal surveillance on most, if not, all major Washington political figures. He also routinely made it known to lawmakers when he had compromising files on them. These files made him virtually untouchable despite fairly wide knowledge of his own corrupt activities.

Hoover, in turn, was held in check by senior Mob figures who had photos of Hoover engaged in sexual relations with his lover and lifetime partner Clyde Tolson. Officially Hoover condemned homosexuality as a sexual perversion and banned gays from serving as FBI agents.

The Myth of Internet Freedom

Stare Into the Lights My Pretties

Jordan Brown (2017)

Film Review

This documentary takes an honest look at the dark side of what they call “screen culture.” The notion that the Internet is “free” is a total myth propagated by the corporate PR industry. The Internet has maximized corporate power more than any other technology, while significantly accelerating globalization.  It also enables government and corporations to spy on virtually every aspect of our lives

The overall premise of the film is that technology never arises in a vacuum. Although falsely portrayed as fulfilling our needs and desires., it ALWAYS serves the ideology and interests of ruling elites who pay for its development. Moreover once people allow new technology into their lives, it changes the way they think.

In Stare Into the Lights My Pretties, neuroscientists express concern about the harmful effect of six-plus hours a day of screen time on concentration, memory, problem solving, empathy and collective awareness.

Far more alarming, though, are the social control aspects of screen culture, all the while masquerading as Internet freedom.

Previously I had no idea of the absolute gatekeeping function of giant monopolies like Google and Facebook in filtering information that reaches individual Internet users. Despite the apparent wealth of information that bombards us via the Internet, the average American is less knowledgeable about US foreign and domestic affairs than prior to the 1990s Internet explosion. This mainly relates to sophisticated algorithms used by Google, Facebook, Yahoo News and even the Huffington Post, Washington Post and New York Times to selectively show us information they think we want to see (based on our clicking behavior).

I suddenly understand why climate deniers are so unshakable in their beliefs. When they search for the term, “climate change,” they end up with a totally different set of articles than I do – thus strongly reinforcing their existing beliefs.

Other more sinister elements of this social control relate to sophisticated behavioral modification techniques that addict us to our screens and to get us to click on specific sites and remain there as long as possible. When we use the Internet, we get confused what the real product is. The real product isn’t the web content we are offered – the real product is us and the massive amount of data collected every time we go online. This, in turn, is sold on to corporate advertisers who use it to entice us to buy their products.

 

 

 

The Myths of Capitalism

In The Myths of Capitalism, Michael Parenti explodes the most prevalent myths the ruling elite perpetuates regarding capitalism. Examples include

• Capitalism produces prosperity – in truth capitalism produces prosperity for a handful of people and poverty for nearly everyone else. Parenti gives numerous examples of this.

• The poor are responsible for their own poverty and are always looking for handouts – in reality, poverty occurs when the ruling elite privatize resources and public services to increase profits. Wherever capitalism is introduced, poverty follows.

• Privately run businesses are always more efficient than those that are publicly run – Parenti gives number examples (including the post office, Medicare and Social Security) of government-run operations that have far less bureaucracy and far lower administrative costs than their private counterparts.

• Capitalism fosters democracy – Parenti demonstrates quite ably how the exact opposite is true. A well educated working class that resists exploitation by exercising their democratic rights is an enormous threat to private profit. The US ruling elite fully supported the Bush/Obama suspension of basic civil liberties, the routine surveillance of the citizenry and the introduction of torture.

Most of the presentation focuses on the corporate crime and corruption and routine economic instability inherent in a capitalist economic system. Under modern industrial capitalism the only way to keep the economy from collapsing is to undertake a permanent state of perpetual war.

Spyware: the Latest Growth Industry

The Spy Merchants

Al Jazeera (2017)

Film Review

The Spy Merchants is about the spyware private contractors develop for the US and other western governments and the devious tactics they use to illegally sell various surveillance systems to professional hackers, repressive dictators, corporate spies and terrorist groups.

In this investigation, an undercover Al Jazeera reporters approaches various surveillance manufacturers seeking to buy and IMSI catcher and an IT intercept system on behalf of Iran and the repressive government of South Sudan. An IMSI catcher is a software program that can intercept and control (ie send fake messages on their behalf) all the electronic communications of an individual. An IT intercept system is designed to monitor a nation’s entire Internet traffic. Both technologies can sell for as much as 20 million Euros.*

Surveillance exports are supposedly tightly controlled by US and EU regulations. However, as shown in this film, manufacturers of surveillance software routinely circumvent these regulations by falsifying documents or by shipping their products via a third country or a shell company.

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* Except in China – Chinese vendors will sell you an IMSI catcher for $300,000

French Activists Real Target of State of Emergency

Paris State of Emergency

Medialien (2016)

Film Review

Paris State of Emergency is a short documentary revealing how French police are using the state of emergency declared in November 2015 to target social justice activists rather than Islamic terrorists.

This has resulted in numerous warrantless house searches by armed SWAT teams, as well as arbitrary arrest and heavy police violence against squatters and peaceful protesters.

French activists find themselves in a similar position as US activists after 9-11 and the passage of the Patriot Act. The latter has targeted vastly more activists than terrorists for surveillance, home invasion and arrest.

The French activists interviewed also complain of heavy infiltration of their organizations by police informants – which explains how French authorities could immediately target key organizers once they declared the state of emergency.

Surveillance Canadian Style

Whoa Canada

Directed by Sean Devlin (2015)

Film Review

Whoa Canada is an expose of illegal Canadian intelligence activities presented in the humorous satirical style of the Yes Men documentaries. The films credits list the Yes Men and Michael Achbar (directed The Corporation and Manufacturing Consent) as executive producers.

The film follows the exploits of the founders of the ShitHarperDid.com website as they attempt to investigate the psychic Harper has hired (at taxpayer expense) as his hairstylist and makeup artist.

These adventures are interlaced with escapades in which they crash closed door meetings between Harper and other members of the Conservative government and their corporate clients and benefactors.

The filmmakers also provide brief factual interludes revealing the extent of the Communications Security Establishment’s (CSE) illegal surveillance activities against Harper’s political opponents, their notorious racial profiling, their infiltration (along with the Canadian police) of the Canadian Occupy movement and the country’s barbarous treatment of First Nations Canadians.

I was particularly intrigued to learn that Canadian telecommunications providers voluntarily turned over data on their subscribers to Canadian intelligence after the CSE paid them over $1.6 million for it ((unlike the US where the government compelled telecoms to turn it over).

When CSE security guards deny them access to the multibillion dollar CSE security complex, ShitHarperDid.com activists hire their own psychic to visualize activities taking place inside the building. Her findings are later confirmed by NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden.

Exposing the Myth of Capitalist Democracy

Lifting the Veil: Barack Obama and the Failure of Capitalist Democracy

Scott Noble (2013)

Film Review

Lifting the Veil is a well-crafted expose of the myth of so-called capitalist democracy Based on interviews and archival footage of Senator Bernie Sanders, Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, George Carlin, Glen Ford, Harold Pinkley, John Pilger, Richard Wolfe, William I. Robinson, Bill Moyers and other prominent dissidents, it makes an ironclad case that democracy is impossible under a capitalist economic system.

Using Obama’s extensive list of broken campaign promises as a starting point, Noble convincingly demonstrates how Wall Street corporations have seized absolute control over all America’s so-called democratic institutions. In addition to highlighting the essential role team Obama played in crippling a large, highly vocal antiwar movement, he presents historical examples to reveal how this has been the traditional role of the Democratic Party in the US – to co-opt social movements that threaten the status quo.

The first half of the film focuses on Obama’s 2008 campaign and his long list of promises to reverse specific abuses of George W Bush’s government. In a series of archival clips, we see Obama promising to

• Restore habeas corpus
• Close Guantanamo
• End government secrecy
• End wireless surveillance
• Stop foreclosures instead of enriching bank CEOS
• Expose corporate backers of tax and corporate welfare legislation
• End torture
• End extraordinary rendition*
• Withdraw from Iraq in 2009 and Afghanistan in 2011
• Pass banking regulation to prevent a new Wall Street collapse

Besides breaking every single one of these promises, Obama enacted new policies that were even more oppressive and pro-corporate than Bush’s. Among them were an indefinite detention provision in the NDAA, an executive order giving himself power to assassinate American citizens, the new war in Pakistan and Libya and $7 billion in loans guarantees for the moribund nuclear industry.

The film makes the point that the 2008 election was merely a PR exercise in marketing Brand Obama and had absolutely nothing to do with the candidate’s political agenda.

My favorite segments were those in which comedian George Carlin explains to audiences how powerful corporations sucker them into believing they live in a democracy.

The film ends on an optimistic note with a sampling of opinion polls indicating that more than 60% of Americans oppose the pro-corporate agenda Obama has foisted on them: 63% of Americans would pay higher taxes to guarantee health care for everyone, 70% oppose nuclear power, 81% want to reduce the deficit by taxing the rich and cutting the military budget and only 3% support cutting Social Security.

The only criticism I would have of Lifting the Veil is that it fails to offer specific solutions for Americans seeking to get their democracy back. The dissidents featured are pretty much unanimous that Americans need to stop looking to electoral politics as a way to reform either government or the economic system. However they are a little vague on what activists should do other than protesting and engaging in civil disobedience. Neither is likely to accomplish significant change without serious organizing and movement building to develop alternatives to the current system of government.

Given a lot of this movement building is already occurring in Spain, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Iceland, Mexico and South America and it would have been great to see examples of what this looks like.

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*Extraordinary rendition is the kidnapping and transfer of a detainee to the custody of a foreign government for purposes of detention, interrogation and torture.