Czars And A Gulag America? – J. Speer-Williams

(Rense) – Czars were Russian tyrants. Gulags were Russian slave labor camps. Are gulags coming to America? We already have a growing corps of Czars.

The oligarchs of the International Monetary/Banking Cartel took a huge step towards the tyranny of their New World Order when they put their man ­ Barack Obama ­ into the White House.

Obama, who many Americans still consider to be their friend, has had the audacity ­ the cheek, the arrogant insolence ­ to have appointed a growing cadre of Czars, on top of a bloated bureaucracy that is already at least a thousand times too large and too intrusive.

This is “in your face” tyranny. The very word ­ Czar ­ is repugnant to any democracy. The very definition of the word Czar means, “king” or “emperor” or “autocrat” or “tyrant.”

MSM: The facial recognition software that will put a name to every photograph in the internet

(MailOnline) – A software company is developing revolutionary software which provides the ability to identify people from photographs posted on the internet.

Face.com has produced technology that can identify individuals on social networking sites and online galleries by comparing their image against a known picture of them.

It means detailed profiles of individuals can be built up purely from online photographs and critics have said it could lead to exploitation by employers. Read More Here

10 Credible Conspiracy Theories?

(DailyBell) – Since Obama’s election, the constituent theories within the overarching narrative of the New World Order have increasingly made inroads into the mainstream national discourse. … Joseph Farah’s WorldNetDaily.com, for example, has grown its influence by peddling paranoia about the president’s birth certificate and AmeriCorps’ “domestic armies.” Earlier this year, the John Birch Society, a group with a long history of hatching and promoting wild conspiracy theories (including the idea that President Eisenhower was a communist agent), co-sponsored the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual powwow of leading conservatives and Republican Party figures. Speakers at this year’s conference included such mainstream names as Washington Post columnist George Will, former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner. Here is a compilation of 10 of the most popular conspiracy theories currently circulating on the radical right and, increasingly, on points of the political spectrum much too close to the center for comfort.” – AlterNet

Dominant Social Theme: The lunatics need to be reined in.

Free-Market Analysis: While popular, left-wing website AlterNet cannot be considered mainstream media per se, this article partakes of the modern Western (mostly US) tradition of debunking suspicions that people may have about their government. It is especially a US dominant social theme – that the “paranoid style” of US politics generates fantastical suspicions about the US fedgov’s intentions. Various “right wing” nutcases are flagellated for not taking the US-based corporatocracy and military industrial complex at its word.

Never mind that the US government is a US$3 trillion-plus entity with world-spanning power and that entities so powerful and complex have their own logic and their own over-riding agenda. Never mind that the US has been almost constantly at war (somewhere in some fashion) for the past 100 years or longer. (Never mind, in fact, that the US now employs so many domestic and foreign intel operatives that it cannot keep track of them anymore.) In fact, when one looks into AlterNet at Wikipedia it becomes fairly clear that the money behind the group comes from the predictable power-elite pocketbook, including the Ford Foundation which never saw a socialist cause it couldn’t endorse and fund. (Henry Ford has been rolling like a top for decades.) Perhaps AlterNet is a promotion, too?

Anyway, such an article is of obvious interest to the Daily Bell because it counteracts (with the calm voice of reason) suspicions that the powers-that-be are in any sense aimed at US citizens themselves. These sorts of articles are actually quite numerous on the ‘Net, but this is a very good example of one. Here are the top ten list of conspiracy theories from AlterNet and our comments beneath.

Bilderberg Exposed: Search Terms Take 1, 2 & 3 In Google Trends

(PaulWatson) – Three keyword search terms related to our earlier article about exposing the Bilderberg Group have hit the number 1, 2 and 3 positions in Google Trends, ensuring the subject of Bilderberg will now get out to millions more people.

Three different search terms that all relate to our earlier article – Two Films That Blew Bilderberg Wide Open – “Bilderberg films,” Bilderberg wide open,” and “two films” occupy the top three positions on Google Trends’ Hot Searches (USA) for August 20th.

Two of the terms have hit “volcanic status while the other one is “on fire” – this translates as massive traffic to our Bilderberg article and many people who would never have come into contact with this information educating themselves about the march towards global government and the secret power wielded by the Bilderberg Group.

Video: Breaking – Google’s Plans to Takeover The Internet Exposed!! – Alex Jones

The net-neutrality ending deal with Verizon is just the beginning of Google’s plans to kill the open and free Internet as part of their takeover agenda to completely control the world wide web and force independent media websites, radio and TV shows out of existence for good.

Video: Alex Jones and MSNBC’s Hit Piece – The Lost Footage

The video footage below did not make it into MSNBC’s slam piece, “Rise Of The New Right,” that featured and demonized patriots, including Alex Jones. A link to “rest of the story,” obviously not suitable for the establishment’s propaganda and demonization purposes, was posted on Real Alex Jones, Alex Jones’ Facebook page.

Video: Biometric Iris Scanning Technology Rolled Out Across Entire City

“Every person, place, and thing on this planet will be connected [to the iris system] within the next 10 years”

(SteveWatson) – A biometrics research and development company is set to roll out iris recognition technology across an entire city in a move that it claims will create a real life Minority Report society where anyone taking a train or shopping in a department store will have their eyes scanned by hi-tech sensors.

Global Rainmakers Inc. (GRI), based out of headquarters in New York, has announced that it will use the technology to begin creating what it claims will be “the most secure city in the world” in Leon, one of Mexico’s largest cities. View More Here

Google Plans To Kill Web In Internet Takeover Agenda

(PaulWatson) – The net-neutrality ending deal with Verizon is just the beginning of Google’s plans to kill the open and free Internet as part of their takeover agenda to completely control the world wide web and force independent media websites, radio and TV shows out of existence for good.

Google’s agreement with Verizon to speed certain Internet content to users opens the door to the complete sterilization of the world wide web as a force for political change. Under Google’s takeover plan, the Internet will closely resemble cable TV, independent voices will be silenced and the entire Internet will be bought up by transnational media giants.

Google Yanks “Kill The Web” Article That Warned Of Internet Takeover

(PaulWatson) – Having at first appeared as normal, our earlier article about Google’s plan to kill the web has been completely de-listed from Google News. This is completely unprecedented and underscores how keen Google is to prevent people from finding out that it is a CIA-NSA front that is preparing to completely end the Internet as we know it with the Verizon net-neutrality killing deal.

The article, entitled Google Plans To Kill Web In Internet Takeover Agenda, originally appeared on Google News but was pulled shortly after.

A subsequent blurb promoting Alex Jones’ video presentation on the issue made it through to Google News but could also be yanked at any time.

In the face of this censorship, it’s more important than ever that people get the word out about Google’s plan to kill the web and replace it with a sterile clone of cable TV that will ensure all independent voices on the Internet are silenced forever.

Get our original article – at
http://www.prisonplanet.com/google-plans-to-kill-web-in-internet-takeover-agenda.html and get it out to people. – Source: Infowars

Video: Jesse Ventura Talks About Homeland Security “Gestapo,” Hollywood Secrets & More

In an exclusive new video for Prison Planet.tv subscribers, former Governor Jesse Ventura warns that Homeland Security is rapidly becoming the American Gestapo, as Ventura still fumes over the fact that the feds tried to stop him from filming the JFK memorial at Arlington Cemetery.

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura visited Austin, Texas last week to work on the next season of his hit TV show “Conspiracy Theory.” Alex Jones had a chance to catch up with the governor while driving around for the shoot.

None Dare Call It Tyranny – Sheldon Richman

(FFF) – If you want to know what tyranny is like, look around.

The national government — specifically the executive branch — can do pretty much what it wants. It could bomb Iran tomorrow without a declaration of war from Congress. It can — and does — conduct secret wars and covert operations against countries that have done nothing to us. Of course, they are secret only to the ignorant taxpayers who must finance them and perhaps suffer when the provoked retaliation occurs. It can have men behind PlayStation consoles in Nevada fire Hellfire missiles from aerial drones on people in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere.

This tyrannical government can send any foreigner picked up anywhere in the world to third countries known for torturing prisoners. It can hold people accused of nothing indefinitely in prisons in Cuba and Afghanistan and torture them into making false confessions. It can conduct a war crimes trial in a military kangaroo court for a man, Omar Khadr, held captive for eight years after he was picked up at the age of 15 during a U.S. assault on villagers near Kabul. His torture-induced “confessions” will be admissible. All this is in violation of commitments under the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict not to treat children in war as though they were adults.

It can assassinate even American citizens abroad without a scent of due process.

Iris Scanners Create the Most Secure City in the World. Welcome, Big Brother

(FastCompany) – We’ve all seen and obsessively referenced Minority Report, Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s dystopian future, where the public is tracked everywhere they go, from shopping malls to work to mass transit to the privacy of their own homes. The technology is here. I’ve seen it myself. It’s seen me, too, and scanned my irises.

Biometrics R&D firm Global Rainmakers Inc. (GRI) announced today that it is rolling out its iris scanning technology to create what it calls “the most secure city in the world.” In a partnership with Leon — one of the largest cities in Mexico, with a population of more than a million — GRI will fill the city with eye-scanners. That will help law enforcement revolutionize the way we live — not to mention marketers.

“In the future, whether it’s entering your home, opening your car, entering your workspace, getting a pharmacy prescription refilled, or having your medical records pulled up, everything will come off that unique key that is your iris,” says Jeff Carter, CDO of Global Rainmakers. Before coming to GRI, Carter headed a think tank partnership between Bank of America, Harvard, and MIT. “Every person, place, and thing on this planet will be connected [to the iris scanner system] within the next 10 years,” he says. Read entire article

Internet Kill Switch Bill Moves Closer To Senate Vote

See Also: (TheInquirer) – AT&T claims net neutrality is oppressive – Read More Here

(PaulWatson) – Democratic Cybersecurity caucus leader threatens “cyber-9/11″ if legislation not quickly passed

Big Brother: Obama Demands Access to Internet Records, in Secret, and Without Court Review – Tom Burghardt

(AntifascistCalling) – The Obama administration is seeking authority from Congress that would compel internet service providers (ISPs) to turn over records of an individual’s internet activity for use in secretive FBI probes.

In another instance where Americans are urged to trust their political minders, The Washington Post reported last month that “the administration wants to add just four words–‘electronic communication transactional records’–to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge’s approval.”

Under cover of coughing-up information deemed relevant to espionage or terrorism investigations, proposed changes to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) would greatly expand the volume of private records that can be seized through National Security Letters (NSLs).

Every Click You Make

(MotherJones) – Last week the Wall Street Journal ran a terrific series of stories called “What They Know.” The general subject was personal privacy—or the lack of it—in the digital world, and the first article in the series explained how websites routinely track your movements on the web and collect a genuinely astonishing amount of personal information about you in the process. The Journal examined 50 sites using a test computer and discovered that these sites collectively installed a total of 3,180 tracking files—an average of 63 tracking files per site:

The state of the art is growing increasingly intrusive, the Journal found. Some tracking files can record a person’s keystrokes online and then transmit the text to a data-gathering company that analyzes it for content, tone and clues to a person’s social connections. Other tracking files can re-spawn trackers that a person may have deleted.

….Some of the tracking files identified by the Journal were so detailed that they verged on being anonymous in name only. They enabled data-gathering companies to build personal profiles that could include age, gender, race, zip code, income, marital status and health concerns, along with recent purchases and favorite TV shows and movies.

A full list of the sites they examined is here. The most intrusive were dictionary.com and msn.com, which installed over 200 tracking files each. The least intrusive were craigslist.org and wikipedia.org.

Why Cops Love the iPhone

(Infowars) – When Steve Jobs first announced the iPhone in January of 2007, the tech world was abuzz about what this single device could mean to the future of mobile communication. He told the crowd at Macworld that Apple was coming out with a communications device, internet browser and a media player. What police are discovering is that the iPhone is also a great tool for tracking and prosecuting their owners. It turns out that the iPhone stores a lot more information than you may think.

The Chicago Sun-Times published an article expanding on how police are using iPhones in their investigations.

Texbook Doublethink: SPLC’s Latest Effort Attacks Constitutionalists

(21stCenturyWire) – The Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest Associated Press release entitled, Baffling beliefs mark Sovereign Citizen theories, is the organization’s most recent effort to marginalize large blocks of the population it deems to be a domestic threat. Examination of this, as well as other documents, reveals a systematic pattern of media manipulation and disinformation aimed squarely at the American people.

In the latest release the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) identifies,  “the number of people who now consider themselves sovereign citizens, Americans above the law who adhere only to the Constitution and follow a revised history of the United States”.

For any students of critical thinking, the SPLC is employing a 20th century propaganda technique know as doublespeak. Here the SPLC attempts to construct the doublethink idea that such Americans who adhere only to the Constitution are “above the law”.

FCC Using Cybersecurity To Regulate Internet

(FierceGovernmentit) – Yet another federal agency envisions a possible broader role for itself in securing private sector Internet infrastructure. The Federal Communications Commission issued on August 9 a notice (.pdf) soliciting public comment on an anticipated FCC plan to address vulnerabilities to core Internet protocols, as well as cybersecurity threats to all end users.

“Cybersecurity is a vital topic for the Commission because end user lack of trust in online experiences will quell demand for broadband services,” the notice states. The National Broadband Plan calls for the FCC to issue a Cybersecurity Roadmap. A plan, the FCC says in the notice, should be completed by November 2010.

Video: ‘Fascism coming to a computer near you’ – Wayne Madsen

(RussiaToday) – Google’s South Korean headquarters have been raided because of allegations that the internet giant stole private information from the nation’s citizens. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt, a member of the Bilderberg group, has called for a new internet that will have a slow lane for porn and shopping but the value added content is only for those who can pay. Wayne Madsen adds that the Obama administration wants to shut the internet down to those who cannot pay for it or don’t have enough political influence.

MSM: Your mobile phone may be bugging you, hackers warn

(IND) – A British internet security company has demonstrated how to turn the Palm Pre into a secret bugging device, ideal for corporate espionage, and issued a warning that many other popular smartphones are also vulnerable to hackers.

In-house hackers at Basingstoke-based MWR InfoSecurity have created a bug hidden in an electronic business card, or vcard, which enabled them to use the Pre to record conversations and send the audio file back to them, whenever it is connected to a WiFi or 3G network – all without the user being aware anything at all is happening. Read More Here

Are Google and Verizon Trying to Choke the Net Too Early?

(WallStCheatSheet) – The Information Age is hardly out of the womb. It’s still gasping for first breaths while we clean it off to get a better look.

However, many people and businesses act as if the Information Age is ready for Long Term Care Insurance. Don’t buy what they’re selling.

Recently, Google (GOOG) and Verizon (VZ) started lobbying to end net neutrality. Essentially, they want to create multiple lanes of information traffic, and each lane will have different delivery speeds (see their clever loophole below). This is great for the companies because they want to better price discriminate among their customers. This is horrible for the Internet (in current form) because we have no idea how badly we will choke information and innovation if we cut the cloth this early in the game. Read entire article

MSM: Vending Machines Of The Future

(MyFoxNY) – Your thumbprint might soon be the key to an afternoon candy bar. A Massachusetts based vending machine company is joinng the growing ranks of companies that are field-testing new technologies.

Next Generation Vending and Food Service is experimenting with biometric vending machines that would allow a user to tie a credit card to their thumbprint.

“For a certain demographic that is pretty cool,” says company president John S. Ioannou.

Next Generation is currently testing about 60 of the biometric machines in various locations in the northeast. Read More Here

Video: The Alternative to Naked body Scanners – ScanWoW

WARNING – Explicit Content

Is your body too embarrassing to be seen on the airport naked body scanners? Then get NEW ScanWoW!

Video: The Government is the Servant, Not the Master

(Fox) – Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano –

Video: Alex Jones – Big brother is watching you

(RussiaToday) – Verizon and Google have announced that they hope to regulate the internet by controlling access and the speed of the internet to different websites. In other privacy news, Air France has announced that they will install cameras into every seat to watch their passengers; civil rights activists are crying foul saying it invades people’s privacy too much.

MSM: Google and Verizon DID do a deal for new internet ‘first class’ superhighway

(UKDailyMail) – Technology giants Google and Verizon have today paved the way for a future ‘two-tier’ internet in which companies can pay extra to make sure their services get through.

In a joint statement the two firms called for a new, premium connection which would let internet service providers, such as Virgin, charge more for certain services over faster, higher-quality lines.

But critics have accused Google and Verizon of plotting to carve up the internet to suit big, established firms like themselves.

Did Google Block “Barry Soetoro” Search Term?

(PaulWatson) – Screenshots obtained by a Prison Planet reader suggest that Google may have moved to de-list “Barry Soetoro” as a popular search term shortly after it rose to the top of the Google Trends charts after yesterday’s effort by radio talk show host Alex Jones to focus attention on Barack Obama’s real name.

The search term reached number one on Google Trends soon after Alex Jones began discussing the issue on his show yesterday and Prison Planet.com released an article on the same topic. However, within the space of about an hour, the term quickly slipped down the list of hot search terms and by the end of the day was gone completely.

Cybersecurity Lie Exposed: Power Plants Are Not Connected To The Internet

(PaulWatson) – Primary justification behind internet takeover bill that would hand Obama power to shut down world wide web is completely fraudulent

Who poses the real threat to the Internet?

(CampaignForLiberty) – A new opinion piece on CNN.com argues that it’s the government, not the companies providing internet access, that is the real danger to free speech and the internet:

We should be skeptical of any claims that net neutrality regulation is consistent with the First Amendment, let alone required by it. As First Amendment attorney Robert Corn-Revere has noted (“The First Amendment, the Internet & Net Neutrality: Be Careful What You Wish For”), “It should not be forgotten that the federal government’s initial impulse [in the mid-1990s] was to censor the internet and to subject it to a far lower level of First Amendment protection.”

The real “Big Brother” threat here is a government with the power to completely foreclose all speech under threat of fine or imprisonment — a power the private sector lacks even if you buy into the silly notion that it is out to bottle up speech or speakers…. Read More Here

See Also:

(HuffingtonPost) – Google-Verizon Deal: The End of The Internet as We Know It

For years, Internet advocates have warned of the doomsday scenario that will play out on Monday: Google and Verizon will announce a deal that the New York Times reports “could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege.”

The deal marks the beginning of the end of the Internet as you know it. Since its beginnings, the Net was a level playing field that allowed all content to move at the same speed, whether it’s ABC News or your uncle’s video blog. That’s all about to change, and the result couldn’t be more bleak for the future of the Internet, for television, radio and independent voices.

Net Neutrality

(CNN) – Net neutrality is foremost free speech issue of our time

If we learned that the government was planning to limit our First Amendment rights, we’d be outraged. After all, our right to be heard is fundamental to our democracy.

Well, our free speech rights are under assault — not from the government but from corporations seeking to control the flow of information in America. Read More Here

(ActivistPost) – FCC Abandons Efforts for Net Neutrality Compromise: Allows Google and Verizon to Write the Regulations – Read More Here

(PoorRichardsBlog) – Google, Verizon Web Deal Could Upend Net Neutrality – Read More Here

(ActivistPost) – Video: The Trust Crisis with Regulating Net Neutrality

Since it was reported that Google and Verizon are close to a deal on so-called “net neutrality,” the policy debate has heated up in Washington. Of course the debate has very little to do with the actual mechanics of how net neutrality will work, rather who will get the control to regulate it.

However, now that the FCC has abandoned negotiations on a “net neutrality” compromise, it is looking like the Congress will ultimately establish the rules — handed down to them by their corporate masters. It seems the Elite’s fight over who controls the dial has been decided.  One thing is for sure, whoever controls the speed dial on the Internet will control the entire Web and subsequently all flow of information.

Google’s Schmidt: Society not ready for technology

(CNET) – For those concerned with privacy, Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave them a few more things to start worrying about.

At a conference here Wednesday, Schmidt noted that using artificial intelligence, computers can take 14 pictures of anyone on the Internet and stand a good chance of identifying that person. Similarly, the data collected by location-based services can be used not only to show where someone is at, but to also predict with a lot of accuracy where they might be headed next.

“Pretty interesting,” Schmidt said. “Good idea, Bad idea?…The technology of course is neutral but society is not fundamentally ready.”

His comments came at the start of Techonomy, a new conference devoted to looking at how technology is changing and can change society.

Schmidt said that society really isn’t prepared for all of the changes being thrust upon it. “I think it’s time for people to get ready for it.”

Schmidt said these records are a challenge for everyone, himself included, as he noted he was a child of the 1960s. Full article here

Feds admit storing checkpoint body scan images

(CNET) – For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they’re viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.”

Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.

This follows an earlier disclosure (PDF) by the TSA that it requires all airport body scanners it purchases to be able to store and transmit images for “testing, training, and evaluation purposes.” The agency says, however, that those capabilities are not normally activated when the devices are installed at airports.

Body scanners penetrate clothing to provide a highly detailed image so accurate that critics have likened it to a virtual strip search. Technologies vary, with millimeter wave systems capturing fuzzier images, and backscatter X-ray machines able to show precise anatomical detail. The U.S. government likes the idea because body scanners can detect concealed weapons better than traditional magnetometers. Full article here

Video: Big Brother 2.0 Is Watching You Online

Video: Project Vigilant – Shadowy Spy Group Building Dossiers On Internet Users For Feds – Alex Jones Tv

An organization that tracks 250 million IP addresses a day has been developing portfolios on Internet users and handing the information to U.S. federal agencies as the latest incarnation of the supposedly defunct Total Information Awareness spy program is revealed.

MSM: Stealthy Government Contractor Monitors U.S. Internet Providers, Worked With Wikileaks Informant

(Forbes) – A semi-secret government contractor that calls itself Project Vigilant surfaced at the Defcon security conference Sunday with a series of revelations: that it monitors the traffic of 12 regional Internet service providers, hands much of that information to federal agencies, and encouraged one of its “volunteers,” researcher Adrian Lamo, to inform the federal government about the alleged source of a controversial video of civilian deaths in Iraq leaked to whistle-blower site Wikileaks in April.

Liz Cheney calls on Obama to shut down WikiLeaks

(RawStory) – Following the release of 92,000 war log files, Liz Cheney is calling for WikiLeaks to be shut down and says that the founder has “blood on his hands.”

“I would point out that although you’ve got the news about the WikiLeaks documents that that came out this week and clearly Julian Assange’s effort was to change course for the US policy in Afghanistan,” Cheney told Fox News’ Chris Wallace Sunday.

“He was unsuccessful in that. He does clearly have blood on his hands potentially for the people whose names were in those documents who helped the US and I think that’s something he will have to live with now,” she continued.

‘Minority Report’ Ad Billboards To Address Consumers By Name

(SteveWatson) – More loving technology from IBM to “make your life easier”

Unilever stalks its customers with GPS trackers secretly placed in laundry detergent boxes (opinion) – Mike Adams

(NaturalNews) – The household cleaning product giant Unilever has secretly placed GPS tracker transmitters in laundry detergent boxes to track consumers to their homes. With an array of electronic sensors, team of Unilever agents can now pinpoint the exact location of the GPS trackers and walk right up to your front door. They can even remotely set off a beeper inside the box using radio electronics.

The point of all this? It’s part of Unilever’s new marketing campaign to convince consumers in Brazil to purchase more boxes of Omo laundry detergent.

The GPS trackers, you see, are only embedded in “prize winning” boxes of Omo detergent. If you happen to buy one of these GPS tracked boxes, you’re a “winner” and Unilever agents then show up at your door with a video camera crew and a prize.

Is WikiLeaks More Than Just a High-Tech Brown Envelope? Yes

(Gigaom) – WikiLeaks, the crusading anti-secrecy organization that just published 90,000 pages of secret government documents about the war in Afghanistan, has gotten a lot of attention for its campaign to become the world’s repository of whistle-blowing and embargo-busting information, and leader Julian Assange has become the star of the political talk show circuit. But the most interesting thing about WikiLeaks and the release of the secret Afghan documents isn’t the details of the U.S. campaign — it’s what the incident says about the evolution of a truly distributed and dis-aggregated new media ecosystem.

MSM: Breaking a Promise on Surveillance

It is just a technical matter, the Obama administration says: We just need to make a slight change in a law to make clear that we have the right to see the names of anyone’s e-mail correspondents and their Web browsing history without the messy complication of asking a judge for permission.

It is far more than a technical change. The administration’s request, reported Thursday in The Washington Post, is an unnecessary and disappointing step backward toward more intrusive surveillance from a president who promised something very different during the 2008 campaign.