This week in Grey Matters I wonder whether you really can separate ufos from politics. Most can probably guess my conclusion. Grey Matters will be found at Binnall of America sometime today when the planets are aligned in the perfect formation. :-) Don't forget to check out all the great columns like The Binnall Report, The K-Files and Trickster's Realm!
8 comments:
I don't think the McKinnon case has anything to do with politics. It's not one political party or the other that is out to get Gary, it's the government. The government is run by career bureaucrats who stay in service in both Republican and Democrat offices. In fact, the government is the single biggest employer in the U.S.
As for laws, they change generally at the will of the people either by direct or indirect democracy. For example, a little girl is raped and killed, it gets a lot of media coverage, the people demand "tough on criminals laws", we get Three Strikes laws. Or another example: 19 Muslims fly planes into public buildings killing civilians, we demand our government protects us, we get the Patriot Act. Action/Reaction.
Regarding your quote: "Throughout American history challenging laws and pointing out unfairness is part of our culture. It is what made this country. There was a tea tax, that was the law, we didn’t want to abide by it and we found a way not to. Tea in itself is not political, but not something able to be separated from politics in that case."
This makes my point. The Tea Tax was not one person or small group of people saying "hey, that's not fair", but rather it was the MAJORITY (e.g. Democracy). The "American Way" may be to have the freedom to stand up and say that's not fair, but if you want to effect real change you need to find thousands if not millions to stand up with you. (p.s. this is precisely why the "Disclosure Types" are delusional... Until the masses demand disclosure it won't happen, and judging by the charisma of the proponents of this movement, we're a real long way off from that.)
Also, I wouldn't lose to much sleep over the McKinnon case. He seems to be a world-class bullshitter and perhaps he is lying BIGTIME. It's quite possible he's not as innocent as he seems, or he may have just been a petty vandal hacker, but what I do know is that he's making fabulous claims without one scintilla of evidence to back him up (not even a screen capture). He has captured his 15 minutes of pseudo-fame in our torrid little world and no doubt a book deal is in the works.
As always, I enjoy your column, and of course this is just my two cents! :)
Yeah, but it takes only a small group standing up to bring attention to the masses. What became the revolution started with a very small group.
If I lived in the UK I would consider a law that let the US extradite anyone in my country accused of terrorism to be tried in the courts of a foreign land wrong, especially considering the UK has no such right with American citizens. To me the McKinnon case is more about government and politics than it is ufos. Politics in this case meaning whatever is the popular view at the time.
Yes, I agree it seems very strange to me that he has no saved files or print outs. His excuse of using dial up doesn't work for me. I used dial up for over 10 years and still could save or print any file I wished. That being said I can't figure out why the US government is so determined to have him. Unless they have proof he was spying for a foriegn government this case will cost more money than the amount he is accused of costing them to begin with. It all seems senseless to me.
Forgetting for a moment that McKinnon uncovered graft and corruption (billions of dollars beefing up the heightened concerns... ...where did it go?), and he embarrassed the bejeesus out of an, I suspect, _illegitimate_ government (vote fraud... ...named persons think so), he got them to admit their _malfeasance_ with regard to high security matters _assured_... ...the blithering _lack_ of simple garden variety intelligence paid for at a _very_ exorbitant rate... and the very same incompetence eagerly demonstrated in our _security_ apparatus that is practiced at _other_ levels of current *government* for the last six years.
...Not to put too fine a point on it.
McKinnon should perhaps get a medal!
A veteran, retired military,a college graduate, and an independent, I don't _remotely_ overstate this. Hyperbole index 'zero'...
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Lesley, I think governments hit hackers really hard to dissuade other hackers from attempting the same thing. The government at its core knows it's vulnerable to computer attack, as their security systems have been breached before and will be again regardless of technological efforts to thwart. Therefore, the security of said systems is protected as much by fear as it is any sort of firewall or other technology.
If Gary McKinnon gets extradited to the U.S. and does hard time, it's highly likely that some kid in Manchester will think twice before hacking the system.
By the way, from what I understand he didn't just hack in and look around, but maliciously destroyed files. That does not sound like an honest searcher for the "truth" to me.
I need to see proof of the damage they claim. Mostly because they had to claim a certain amount of damage in order to be able to charge him with the hacking, or so that is my understanding. It is also my understanding that the amount of damage they charge him with was the exact amount they needed to be able to charge him, which seems fishy to me.
The recent UFO Magazine article on this; supposedly he hacked into the system very easily, with out dated computer equipment. So one issue is the government's funky ineptness and sercurity, and their embarrassment. Much like their response to UFOs: to paraphrase Gertrude Stein (I think) "there's no there there."
There were no admin passwords on the sites. So what happened to the people who were suppose to protect this info and didn't? I would hope they were at least fired, but I have my doubts that anything happened to them. No matter that without passwords anyone, including people far more dangerous than McKinnon were probably accessing these sites. You never hear about the people who were suppose to be protecting this info and didn't. Is that not a crime?
I agree, but the U.S. government is notoriously unaccountable. All the employees are unionized at some level so firing them is next to impossible.
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