PRISM - GCHQ/NSA, Who Gives a Flying F**K?

(C) BLOGDOTTHOUGHTPICKDOTCOM

So, the news has been full this weekend that apparently the NSA in America has been spying on it's citizens through a computer programme called PRISM and have been accessing people's GOOGLE, FACEBOOK and other social media sites, although the owners of all these companies have denied, well they would wouldn't they, giving access to their sites to the Agency; other than what they would normally do as required by law or warrant. So, that's in the US, but what about here in the UK?

(C) INKCINTDOTCOM

Well, most of us on social media are signed up to all these sites and I can't think of one that is actually British, so therefore, we are, by default, signing on to our social media sites through our American cousins in Silicon Valley or Seattle or in some non descriptive nuclear bomb proof shelter in the desert somewhere. 

(C) CARTOONSBYCELESTEDOTBLOGSPOTDOTCOM

Now I don't know about you but have you looked at my twitter string or Facebook page or indeed my blog page, it's full of personal crap. My emails are normally me ranting to some service provider, usually a utility company and if not ranting they are full of boring mundane shit that no one wants to, or should want to read, although me and my Internet thingy BFF were messaging each other the other day about shotguns, in-laws from hell and setting up landmines around the approach to the house with sensors programmed for a specific person! I made a joke on one of the messages informing the security services that we were only joking, well one of us was, but I ain't telling you which one.

(C) TOONPOOLDOTCOM

My point is, that even if GCHQ or the NSA were to look at that particular string I am fairly confident that I wouldn't have the SAS or anyone else storming the house or the office with stun grenades and gas, flinging me to the floor and cuffing me with plastic ties., (but if you do can you bare in mind I have a sore tummy after recent abdominal surgery that no gives a F**k about unlike Prince bloody Blundermouth Philip oh, and I have cancer, so be gentle on me if you do storm the place) No, I think they would look and say "Look, we've got a couple here talking about shotguns and land mines, and killing someone." Then they would hopefully look at our Internet history and emails and blogs and see that we are normal every day people who rant and rave occasionally about Big Brother our completely and utterly useless politicians, who should in fact be monitored for criminal activities on a daily and 24 hour basis, and decide that we are harmless venters who jokingly talk about serious stuff, including the Mother-in-Law, Politicians and the unfair System that Joe pubLic lives in from time to time, and THEN leave us completely and utterly alone in our own little worlds. 

Sure, I would be worried if it was an 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 type society and as much as some of our dictators, sorry I mean Prime Ministers and Presidents or J Edgar Hoover, would like to have seen most of the population locked up and the keys thrown away on most of the population, for what they said, did or wrote, we aren't quite there yet, I don't think. 

Off course the argument will then be put forward, yes Tom and therein lies the problem with allowing them to snoop on us now and to gather, collect and save this information on us from our private and personal (well as much as Facebook, twitter, google and blogging are our private little worlds and only those we allow to see it can see it, yeah right) Internet accounts and come the day when The Man does decide to really grind us into the ground, they'll have the information that 'we gave them'! 

Now look at your own Internet footprint, is it as boring and mundane as mine, are you really worried that Big Brother is looking at what you're looking at, or what you are saying through the various mediums, nope probably not. So why are all those folk screaming about the infringement of civil liberties then? As I understand it these men and women who are sitting in their little dark cubicles are looking for key words or phrases that could lead them to find terrorists who are intent on KILLING US. 

If that's the case, and I also realise that many will say that I am being a naive Buffoon and I don't understand the implications, well maybe. But, I do understand that if terrorists, killers, or even everyday criminals, including politicians, and lets not forget paedophiles can be stopped from carrying out these activities then I really don't give a fig how much of my Internet traffic the security services look at.  It does not, that I know off, restrict my liberty or my thinking in my everyday life. 

The only other comment I have on this is the Political one, where politicians, both from the Conservatives and Lib Dems, the parties in power here in the UK, and from Labour, who are hitting the airwaves and being quoted in the press, that this is a 'snoop to far' and are demanding questions be answered on this matter. This just takes party politics too far, again, as they would be the first ones or should be, to tell the other political parties too shut the F**k up, as they would if they were in power. Come on, Is it Me, or are these people just to dumb to be in positions of power?

And finally, I opened up my GMail inbox today to be confronted with this:

"2 people spied on you) - Safe*************** - Free tool that shows you who's spying on you."

Paranoia, really does take over the world at times and my only gripe is that no matter how rude I am to Facebook and Google and Uncle Tom Cobbly and all, they still insist on putting F*****g adverts on my F*****g timelines and web pages, now if the libertarians really want to help, help me to get these folks to stop putting F*****g adverts on my mail and timeline pages