Itty-Bitty Invisible Radio Tacks
By Eastan McNeal on April 19, 2009 at 8:00 AM in Advertising, Bill of Rights, Current Affairs, Freedom of Speech, Homeland Security, Obama Administration
A computer program that tells the White House where you have been on the Internet, RADICAL!
 Note: Wings Under America was a response to Homeland Security’s Right Wing Extremism Alert discussed by Susan here and here. |
If you really want to get the feel of a Klan rally you should don a sheet and sneak into one. Otherwise you are just guessing about what the tenor there really is. That is why, when I was researching information from the Left Wing Extremist Advisory (see note under photo), I knew that I could not really get that total left-wing feeling just by reading a banal review of The Anarchist’s Cookbook on Amazon. I went underground. I slipped into some true black screen anarchy web sites and wandered through the darkness. After I found the quotes I needed I took a long shower and returned to my scribbling.
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Let’s say that, a few days before that research project, you went to the Post Office. While you were there you stepped on one of the itty-bitty, near invisible, tacks spread across the floor and one stuck in your shoe. As soon as you entered the big open field, surrounded by trees with a nice fire in the middle, (that’s where they always hold them in Hollywood) Klan rally the GPS transmitter in your shoe sends a signal back to home boy security alerting the obatron monitors that you have entered into the coordinates of a known risky bunch of stylishly impaired choir boys.
The wake-up call. A few days later you go to city hall to pay your water bill and the girl behind the counter asks you to wait a minute. A federal marshal comes out and asks you to state your business. You toss down the check for the bill and head back home. Behind you is a state trooper. You get in the house and hear an odd clicking when you pick up the phone. Twenty minutes later a man comes to the door and says he is there to pick up your sheets for cleaning.
Itty-Bitty Invisible Radio Tacks. That’s what the techies at Google have given to the White House. If you visit their website a software program operated from Google servers places a tracking device onto the hard drive of your computer. Since we all know that George Orwell was a prophet we must believe that “they” know the web address of every miscreant on the planet. As soon as you visit the anarchist site the itty-bitty invisible tracking device in your computer could send an alert to Washington, cc’d to Chicago, of course. You have just been tagged.
The common name for the IBIRTs (Itty-Bitty Invisible Radio Tacks) is a cookie. That may sound innocent. Cookies are used to help your computer remember your passwords and to help a website recognize you on your return visits. But not all cookies are alike. Some are the type of evil, nasty, spy vs spy information gobblers that even Larry Johnson’s former bosses would put a chain on.
But, isn’t our government, using such technology on an unsuspecting public, against the law? Well, it depends on who is ruling what the definition of isn’t is.
Bill Clinton signed into law a bill that forbade federal agencies from secretly collecting information from your browsing habits. Under George W. Bush the law was further defined and strengthened.
The use of cookies on agency sites is sharply restricted by guidelines set at the end of the Clinton administration, by the E-Government Act of 2002 and by regulations issued by the Bush administration in 2003. “‘Cookies’ should not be used at Federal Web sites… unless, in addition to clear and conspicuous notice, the following conditions are met: a compelling need to gather the data on the site; appropriate and publicly disclosed privacy safeguards for handling of information derived from ‘cookies’; and personal approval by the head of the agency,” according to a memo issued in June 2000 by Jacob J. Lew, then director of the Office of Management and Budget.
So, why are the IBIRTs back? Let’s pull back the sheets.
“The Executive Office of the President is not an agency and is therefore exempt from the law.”
Can we expect more of the same from the little Kenyan Who Could?
You can assume you know, or at least have an idea, what the White House is getting out of this technology partnership, but what’s in it for Google?
The Googles have already sent a sales team to DC to sell to members of congress a gold plated promise that if they advertise with Google in their next campaign that Google can guarantee that their ads will appear in the browser windows of only those people whose browsing habits match the profile of the type of voter who is interested in federal government and who have interests, determined by what other websites they visit, that would make them be classified as someone who would vote for or donate to the legislator.
You can expect this information farming/netting from a political campaign or a commercial web site. Yahoo and Goolge both know where you have been and display ads on your screen accordingly. The feds have rules that bar the use of government assets for political campaigning. But how long will that last?
“There are indications that the administration wants to revise some of these laws, particularly with respect to the Internet, and we’re waiting to see if we can play a role,” said Peter Greenberger, a former regional campaign manager for Al Gore’s presidential bid who now heads Google’s Elections and Issues Advocacy team. “The real question that people are trying to answer is what can the White House do now that they’re the White House as opposed to a [political] campaign.”
Snip
“There would be issues providing some services to an elected official that is not provided to somebody else,” such as a political opponent. But, he added, “in some cases, you know, incumbency is a powerful thing.” [He actually said that? - EMc]
Google is also working with federal officials to map out government data so that Google’s most valuable property, the Google search page, can better direct citizens to sought-after government information. Any increased traffic through the Google Web page to federal sites gives the company a greater opportunity to sell advertising to government and commercial customers, said Greenberger. “It would be great if HUD’s site had a little ad saying, ‘Are you eligible for the mortgage bailout? Fill out this ad,’” Greenberger said in February, using the Department of Housing and Urban Development as an example.
Yes. But how “great” would it be if the ad said “You visited a divorce advice site yesterday and today you were reading a review of the Vagina Monologues. We can refer you to a Health and Human Services counselor to talk to you about your men-hating derangement,” and the person actually seeing the ad on your home computer was your husband?
I, for one, do not think this would be any more “great” than having my sheet pulled off, revealing my reporter’s notepad and pencil illuminated by the glow of a burning cross. “Oh, Brother. Where am I?”
The National Journal brought in some pros to research this information and you really should take the time to read the resulting article.
Just don’t visit any federal sites, especially the White House, before you go off to one of those Despicable. Shameful, Misleading and … anti-progressive websites.
I wouldn’t want you infected by an IBIRT.
by Ronald Scott
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