Let’s turn to the more profound significance of what has occurred. Formerly, back in the days of Orwell, every power could be conceived of as a Big Brother watching over its subjects’ every move. The Orwellian prophecy came completely true once the powers that be could monitor every phone call made by the citizen, every hotel he stayed in, every toll road he took and so on and so forth. The citizen became the total victim of the watchful eye of the state. But when it transpires, as it has now, that even the crypts of state secrets are not beyond the hacker’s grasp, the surveillance ceases to work only one-way and becomes circular. The state has its eye on every citizen, but every citizen, or at least every hacker – the citizens’ self-appointed avenger – can pry into the state’s every secret.
— Umberto Eco
(quoted in the article below)
oh, the irony: U.S. to Host World Press Freedom Day in 2011 (!!!!!)
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/12/152465.htm
and once you’re on their website, you have to click through to their FB page. holy climate summit propaganda!
oy.
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2010/12/us_government_wikileaks_respon.html
US declares Wikileaks off-limits to government researchers – December 07, 2010
The US government is clamping down on scientists’ ability to discuss and surf freely as part of its response to the release of classified cables by Wikileaks.
Today at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, moderators who run an environmental science discussion group called Coral-List have begun deleting any posts that make reference to Wikileak documents. On Friday, at Fermilab in Chicago, access to Wikileaks was blocked by the IT department to “help prevent someone from inadvertently downloading a classified document to a machine on our network” The same day at NASA, employees were told not to use their computers to download information from Wikileaks….
Yes…the mice that roared.
There’s a live blog happening via HuffPo with Alan Rusbridger, Editor of the Guardian.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/07/wikileaks-arrest-julian-assange-arrested_n_793077.html