Truth FarmerTechnology is not inherently evil. However, dependency upon it and authoritarian control over it can certainly be seen as either ignorant or evil.
When one considers the desire of the Powers that Shouldn’t Be to be omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, it doesn’t take long to arrive at the conclusion that the freedom garnered by such wonderful inventions as the internet is very much a double edged sword. We have electronic fingerprints. We are monitored at every site. If we wish to not be monitored, we are “suspect” for being unlike the herd they would have us be. I guess it raises your position in the herd managing system for culling.
For myself, I will continue to be a criminal because I will continue to think unregulated thoughts. I will continue to try to “interface” with people in the real world about real topics. I will continue to be nonplussed by celebrities latest dalliances or legal kerfuffles.
If they turn off the cell phone, the internet, the cars, the lights, the amusement, so be it.
The revolution will not be televised.
And it won’t be tweeted, either:
Court mulls revealing secret government plan to cut cell phone service
Feds: SOP 303 mobile-phone kill-switch policy would endanger public if disclosed.
A federal appeals court is asking the Obama administration to explain why the government should be allowed to keep secret its plan to shutter mobile phone service during “critical emergencies.”
The Department of Homeland Security came up with the plan—known as Standing Operating Procedure 303—after cellular phones were used to detonate explosives targeting a London public transportation system.
SOP 303 is a powerful tool in the digital age, and it spells out a “unified voluntary process for the orderly shut-down and restoration of wireless services during critical emergencies such as the threat of radio-activated improvised explosive devices.”
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Februarysided (PDF) with the government and ruled that the policy did not need to be disclosed under a Freedom of Information Act request from the Electronic Privacy Information Center. The court agreed with the government’s citation of a FOIA exemption that precludes disclosure if doing so “could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual.”
EPIC asked the court to revisit its ruling, arguing that the decision, “if left in place, would create an untethered ‘national security’ exemption’” in FOIA law. On Friday, the court ordered (PDF) the government to respond—a move that suggests the appellate court might rehear the case.
EPIC originally asked for the document in 2011 in the wake of the shut down of mobile phone service in the San Francisco Bay Area subway system during a protest. The government withheld the information, EPIC sued and won, but the government then appealed and prevailed.
In its petition for rehearing, EPIC argued that the appellate court’s decision “created a catch-all provision that would allow federal agencies to routinely withhold records subject to disclosure where the agency merely asserts a speculative security risk.”
Under the direction of the so-called National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, SOP 303 allows for the shutting down of wireless networks “within a localized area, such as a tunnel or bridge, and within an entiremetropolitan area.”
There have been no publicly disclosed instances when SOP 303 has been invoked, but the telecoms have agreed to shutter service when SOP 303 is invoked.
Local governments, however, have the power to shutter wireless service regardless of SOP 303.
The last known time mobile phone service was cut by a government agency was the San Francisco example from 2011. That’s when the Bay Area Rapid Transit System took heat for disabling service to quell a protest in four downtown San Francisco stations. The three-hour outage was done after BART cut service without the assistance of the telcos.
In the aftermath, BART produced a new policy that said service could only be cut off when “there is strong evidence of imminent unlawful activity that threatens the safety of district passengers, employees, and other members of the public.”
http://truthfarmer.com/2015/04/07/transparency-heck-no-shutting-down-cell-phones-is-for-your-safety/
“If they turn off the cell phone, the internet, the cars, the lights, the amusement, so be it.”
Internet would hurt the most.
“The Department of Homeland Security came up with the plan—known as Standing Operating Procedure 303—after cellular phones were used to detonate explosives targeting a London public transportation system.”
Yep and they’re the ones who created that cell phone detonation device and are now punishing the people for cell phone use because of that device that they created. Typical. So now any person with a cell phone is a potential terrorist? Better update that terrorist profile again, DHS. 😉 I guess that would mean everyone with a cell phone in this country (which would be well over 90% of the population) is a terrorist. So I guess those “SMART” phones that they are so hell-bent on selling to everyone aren’t so “smart” to have after all. Maybe we should ban SMART phones and everything SMART? Oh no, no, we can’t do that. It would hurt the corporate government’s profits and then we wouldn’t be able to spy on people. But that’s OK, we’ll still sell them and call the people who are using them, terrorists by default. Makes perfect Communist sense.