Julian Assange Says Google's Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen Are "Witch Doctors" 253
An anonymous reader writes "The Times publishes Assange's takedown of Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen. From the article: 'New Digital Age is a startlingly clear and provocative blueprint for technocratic imperialism, from two of its leading witch doctors, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, who construct a new idiom for United States global power in the 21st century. This idiom reflects the ever closer union between the State Department and Silicon Valley, as personified by Mr. Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, and Mr. Cohen, a former adviser to Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton who is now director of Google Ideas.'"
great review (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
He is clearly more than that or the media would not feel the need to smear him like this.
The "witch doctors" quote is taken completely out of context. All he is saying is that some companies are rushing ahead with new tech like Google Glass and Streetview and telling us everything is fine and its good for us.
Predictions (Score:5, Insightful)
A new “crop of consultants” will “use data to build and fine-tune a political figure.”
Wait, that's in the future? Wasn't that the 2008 election?
Very good point (Score:5, Insightful)
Assange has an awful lot of very astute writing and work leading up to Wikileaks, technically he's no Jacob Appelbaum, but his philosophical writing nails it.
Wikileaks was based upon that philosophy and changed our world by starting this "leaking culture", certainly leaking existed long before, but social factors preventing it were more powerful. Assange created a framework proving that leaking often works where internal reforms fail.
Assange has obviously been driven a little batty by the U.S. government's pursuit via Sweden, U.K., etc., but historians will continue talking about Assange long after they've forgotten about Bush, Clinton, etc. Anyone who can actually push all the way from new philosophy to real political change is a certified genius.
Re:who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact the book was endorsed by Kissenger is enough for me. The man is an authoritarian nightmare; he helped craft the concept of the unitary executive, bombed neutral nations into the dirt, and overthrew legally elected governments to name just a few things. If Kissenger likes it it smells like imperialism to me.
Re:who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
> Assange's knee-jerk reaction is to presume the worst, and hidden, motives for anything related to American interests and motives.
Why the fuck are you Americans so paranoid? You have all the guns you want, a massive military yet you're still so utterly shit scared that everyone's out to get you. For all the talk of "If I someone tried to attack me, I'd shoot them because I'm a hard scary person" in your country you don't have cry like a bunch of pussies each time someone talks bad of you and you don't half seem unable to consider how you might use your own physical form to defend yourselves if your guns were taken away as if the idea of punching someone attempting to attack you is too much for your feeble existences.
There's no doubt his organisation's biggest leak was embarrassing to the US but he leaked things about plenty of other countries prior to that. The only way he's started to focus on the US is in the way that it's been turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy where paranoid Americans like yourself and your government have cried "He's out to get us!" and attacked him in the media and so forth, to which he responds and points out the hypocrisy of your country and your countrymen which you then cry "He's out to get us!" again and so the cycle repeats.
He's not out to get you beyond the fact that your country and it's people have made it an us vs. him thing such that the media always asks about that US complaining against him such that another feedback loop commences about "how he's always on about the US because he just mentioned us! (even though he was asked about us and was just answering the question)" type scenario.
If he has started to pursue the US specifically then that's entirely you're nation's own doing. He only gives a toss about transparency and corruption and if you want him to focus on exposing that in other countries then you know what? Just shut up, and give it up with your attempt at extraordinary rendition via Sweden on trumped up rape charges against him so he can get on with exactly that.
Re:who cares (Score:2, Insightful)
While being in UK someone asked Swedish authorities directly: is there a guarantee that he will not be extradited to US upon return to Sweden -- and there was no guarantee. This rape charges theater staged by Swedish authorities means they are completely on the leash with US, so I would not call it "safest place".
Why would anyone be willing to sign "we guarantee there will be no extradition"? It would probably be illegal to do so. The only situation where a guarantee could be made is if the USA asks Sweden for an extradition, and a Swedish court says "no". Unless and until a Swedish court has looked at it, nobody can say there will be no extradition.
Re:who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, don't forget that Julian became something of a minor hero, when his leaks concerned mostly Arab nations that we disapproved of, or approved of very little. It wasn't until Manning's stuff was published that Julian became "Public Enemy #xx". Congress critters and the White House gave him praise, even if it was faint, as long as he seemed to be focusing on Arab nations. How quickly the tables turned when we became the focus of attention!
Re:Why give this man air time? (Score:5, Insightful)
How has Assange committed treachery, exactly?
He may not be on your side -- but he's not exactly betrayed the side he's on. That's treachery, and he's not committed it.
Re:who cares (Score:4, Insightful)
That hardly answers the question. Why does he think he'd be in so much more danger in Sweden? Why is being in the UK, where extradition is easy, better than being in Sweden, where extradition is hard? Why is being in Ecuador, where the CIA doesn't mind sending in assassins, better than being in Sweden? And it's not me that says assassination might happen in Ecuador - it's the president of the country that's just granted him asylum.
Calling the rape charges theatre directed by the US makes no sense. It would have been terribly easy for the USA to extradite him directly from Britain. Going to Sweden makes it much harder. The only way it makes sense is if it is Julian directing the theatre - all this rubbish about US conspiracies is diverting attention from the sex charges against him.
Re:who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
Your 1. has a flaw. What you mean is, you BELIEVE that there is zero chance that Assange would be extradited from Sweden. In fact, the "charges" aren't even charges - he has NOT been charged with any crime involving those women. Sweden has an ulterior motive for dragging Assange back into their jurisdiction. What could that motive be? Well - an arrangement with the US to permit Assange to be extradited or "rendered" seems most likely to me.
Do we need to revisit the two women involved?
1. Both women came on to Julian, and seduced him - not the other way around.
2. Both women, in interviews, have flatly stated that he did NOT rape or assault them.
3. Both women make exactly the same claim - on the "morning after" Julian had a second helping, WITHOUT a condom.
4. Neither woman made any complaint until AFTER they coincidentally met, and discussed their encounters with Julian.
It is important to note, that after one judge dismissed warrants for Assange's arrest, a DIFFERENT judge took over, and issued warrants on greater crimes than anyone had previously considered.
It's political, and if Sweden gets their hands on Assange, he will be sacrificed to the US Justice department.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Allegations_of_sexual_assault_and_political_refugee [wikipedia.org]
If making yourself a political target is a crime, then Assange is most assuredly guilty of a crime. But he's hardly guilty of any gross sexual offense.
Re:great review (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you're suggesting that there are only two schools of thought: That of the tinfoil hat community, and that of the sheeple.
Well, if I must choose between the two, I'll go with the tin foil hat bunch. I don't want every government agency spying on me through their corporate proxies. And, that is precisely what we would see if congress passes their various cyber security bills - all major corporations would be sharing everything they can learn about every citizen with the government. AND, the government will return the favor, granting corporations access to that same database.
Re:who cares (Score:1, Insightful)
You're dismissal of this article out of hand, with no explanation other than the fact that you don't seem to like him, is weak and suggestive of google shilling. Tell me, what exactly is there to like about an alliance between Google and US foreign policy? Anything? How can this be a "good thing"? I'm listening, which you apparently aren't.
Re:who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
... to presume the worst, and hidden, motives for anything related to American interests and motives. In this way he's like Chomsky...
Have you read any Chomsky? Chomsky explictly refrains from discussing the motives of American foreign policy. This is because, he says, it is impossible to determine what the actual motives behind any particular decision are, to try and do so would just be speculation. Instead, he confines himself to pointing discrepancies between what the govt. and the media say US foreign policy is doing, or trying to do, and what they are actually doing, or trying to do.
He makes this disclaimer prominently in many, if not all of his books (on foreign policy and media hegemony).
Re:who cares (Score:2, Insightful)
You dont get to respond to an arrest warrant with "Ill come along, but only if you accept these terms."
Google = NSA (Score:5, Insightful)
Those that study history have no doubt how the ruling elite operate, or the methods they use to control the populace. It is today no different from how it was three thousand years ago. The psychology of those that find themselves 'in charge' is an assumption that they are "god's chosen". Even today, in the USA, more than 50% of senior US politicians state that 'god' has given them their power to rule over others.
Of course, the reality of the so-called ruling elites is one of being prepared to do whatever it takes to keep power, and wherever possible, to grow that power and pass it on to later generations of their same family/group. America, for instance, is on the verge of getting a second Clinton or a third Bush as supreme ruler.
How do you control the masses? How do you keep the mob on a leash? How do you persuade the populace, year after year, to dedicate their lives to enriching and empowering the same tiny minority?
-learn what the mob is thinking, in as close to real-time as possible
-find the best ways to manipulate the opinions of the mob, especially their long term beliefs and aspirations
-ensure the mob only ever hears control messages from the elites that rule them. Ensure the mob is trained to disregard messages from other sources
-give the mob 'bread and circuses'. Let the mob feel self-empowered by participation in useless trivial events like organised religion, organised team sports, and harmless forms of self expression
-exterminate or co-opt any emerging grass roots movements that could grown and threaten the power bases of the elites.
Only a complete fool would fail to understand where Google fits with the above goals. The dream of computerised intelligence gathering on the general population began before the age of the electronic computer. When 'electronic brains' first appeared, the elites were massively disappointed with the end results of unthinkably expensive attempts to use computers to spy on the populace. Perversely, the fiction of powerful computers doing incredible things spread like wild-fire through the consciousness of ordinary people in the 50s and 60s, but as we know the reality was far different.
The original Google project was predicated on the availability of vast amounts of cheap commodity hard-drive storage and processing power. It looked at the NSA desire to spy on the entire Human population from a very different POV. It also took account of the fact that official government IT projects (even when secret) would always fall prey to mega-corruption and complete-incompetence as a consequence. The psychology of successful IT ambitions was being made apparent by the incredible growth of the Internet.
Google gives people useful/entertaining/addicting toys like search, Youtube, Gmail and Android. Each of these toys monitors, and encourages users to provide ever greater amounts of information about themselves to monitor.
Google also provides the infrastructure (hardware and software models) that are used by the intelligence agencies of the 'West' to store and mine the information they gather. These are shadow-Google installations, built and run by people directly employed by intelligence agencies like the NSA, but based on current designs used by Google itself.
Google, as you should know, makes a lot of money from mining its data and using the results for advertising. What few of you realise is that this business is a deliberate side-effect of Google researching and developing mining algorithms for the NSA.
Today, when you vote Republican or Democrat in the USA, you get exactly the same mid/long term policies, and exactly the same program of rolling wars. In the UK, you can vote Labour, Liberal or Conservative, but still experience the exact agenda Tony Blair laid down for the UK when that monster first rose to visible power. The elites don't even have to bother maintaining even the illusion of a choice, largely thanks to Google.
The people that run Google think that they are superior to you, and therefore their will matters, and you will does not. I hate to tell you this, but the crud that desires to rule over others always has this attitude. And when you do nothing but lay down and accept the abuse, this abusive attitude grows exponentially.
Cyber tickling (Score:3, Insightful)
Except he's talking up cyber terrorism as the future of terrorism, when its not. Boston showed that.
Is the future of tickling, cyber-tickling? Is the future of stomach punching, cyber stomach punching? Cyber kissing?
The ability to cause REAL WORLD damage is two steps harder if you add a first step of 'hack control system', 'make physical device override safeguards'. It's always easier to make real world damage if you do it in the real world.
So you've broken into the physical network, you've taken over the air traffic control, you've diverted the plane into the mountain.... how do you make the airplane radar not flash all those warnings, how do you make the pilot blind so he doesn't see the mountain???... Implausible scenarios, a Hollywood fiction.
So yeh, I'm surprised Schmidt put his name to that garbage, terrorists will always go for the easy terror, not the Rube-Goldberg terror machines involving networks and hacking.
Re:great review (Score:5, Insightful)
You want an extreme example? How is an oppressed society supposed to organize an effective rebellion when privacy is non-existent? Not an issue where you are? Just keep telling yourself it never will be, after all you have many actively defended safeguards against tyranny with wide popular, political, and economic support, right?. [/end sarcasm] In the meantime the majority of the world's population live under governments that almost anyone would consider at last somewhat tyrannical, and as the distinctions between nations become ever more blurry you've got to be incredibly optimistic to think the values of the "good guys" will always win out.
Re:who cares (Score:2, Insightful)
Disagree. I, an American by birth, own firearms for several reasons (not necessarily in order).
1) Recreation - shooting a firearm is a great stress reliever and fun to boot.
2) Sport - I actively hunt game for food.
3) Protection - I am responsible for the safety of my family.
4) Rights - in this country, it seems if you don't exercise your rights, the gov't will have more fodder to take them away.
By the way - I may not represent all Americans with my ideals or standards, but I'm not the exception to the rule either - I'm not fearful at all.
Re:who cares (Score:4, Insightful)
You're dismissal of this article out of hand, with no explanation other than the fact that you don't seem to like him, is weak and suggestive of google shilling
People on Slashdot (and Internet forums in general, I guess) really need to stop seeing dismissing a person's retarded behavior as shilling from the other side. "You disagree with me! You must be paid by the opposition company to do so, no reasonable person would disagree with my behavior!" Until recently, I've only seen the Church of Scientology make those claims on a regular basis. Now every troll on Slashdot seems to do so.
Re:who cares (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow, this shouldn't be marked as Troll.
Re:Not google, redneck shilling. (Score:2, Insightful)