by Mike Ryan
Most folks are aware of the Patriot Act. Here is the skinny:
The USA PATRIOT Act, commonly known as the “Patriot Act”, is a statute enacted by the United States Government that President George W. Bush signed into law on October 26, 2001. The contrived acronym stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (Public Law Pub.L. 107-56).
Interestingly enough, other than allowing for pretty much warrantless wiretapping and general snooping, the real OGRE or Omnipresent Government REcon, (my acronym) is something called the NSL or National Security Letters (their acronym) which can be presented to any ISP and comes complete with a built in “we were never here” clause.
These little beauties allow the government almost complete and unrestricted access to your life as lived on the Internet. Although the NSL’s (not to be confused with the current super-lame SNL) do seemingly have to follow certain guidlines meant to protect the citizen, they can be issued pretty much at will and if time is really an issue–like when the local pub near Quantico is hosting a wet tee shirt contest promptly at 5:30pm after work–THEY can and have issued “corrective NSL’s ” which firstly, allows the Justice Department the right to keep any info they’ve ’stolen’ under prior NSL’S and secondl, allow for exigent requests which are an informal emergency request to a business to voluntarily hand over information until a more formal NSL can be issued to cover the request.
Here is more on the NSL’s from Wired:
2009
The Illusion of Control-Fate and Free Will
By
Michael Ryan
The control we have over our lives is by and large limited and dictated by forces outside of our immediate control. Also, the choices we make daily no matter how seemingly insignificant in the larger picture, create powerful “after effects” that not only affect our future both immediate and long term, but other’s future as well. The vast interrelatedness of humans in modern society all but guarantees that we, as individuals are in some respects like a small boat navigating a vast and turbulent ocean.
Certainly no one likes to think, let alone admit, that they do not have control in their lives. Critical decisions like what college to attend, major, career, who to marry, how many children, where to live and so forth surely are within our decision path. But if you picture the larger social reaction construct that includes all the decisions of everyone around you say to 4 or 5 degrees of separation, you would see the ocean of intertwined decision paths and quickly realize how much control you really have.
In the novel “Chaos Theory” we learned the concept of “sensitive dependence on initial conditions”, otherwise known as the “Butterfly Effect” and how small perturbations in a system can have profound effects on the future “picture”, if you will, of that system.
If you consider your sphere of influence to include say 50 people, then this group would be the immediate system. Consider each member of that system then having 50 or so people in their respective systems. Well you know the old saying if you tell 2 people and they tell 2 people and so on I think you get the picture. Pretty soon we get a model of probability and interrelatedness that looks something like a vast tapestry. Just a side note, maybe this tapestry of social cause and effect is the reality behind the “myth” of the Fates weaving time lines for each of us. In effect, all your choices were presented to you after everyone else “stacked the deck.”
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