Technocracy
"in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite" Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the Nation, January 17, 1961
"Technocracy is the science of social engineering, the scientific operation of the entire social mechanism to produce and distribute goods and services to the entire population" What Is Technocracy?”, The Technocrat, Vol. 3, No. 4, 1938 Page 2
"Register on a continuous 24 hour-per-day basis the total net conversion of energy.
By means of the registration of energy converted and consumed, make possible a balanced load.
Provide a continuous inventory of all production and consumption.
Provide a specific registration of the type, kind, etc., of all goods and services, where produced and where used.
Provide specific registration of the consumption of each individual, plus a record and description of the individual" Scott and Hubbard, Technocracy Study Course, (Technocracy, Inc., 1934) Page 232
"The end-products attained by a high-energy social mechanism on the North American Continent will be:
(a) A high physical standard of living, (b) a high standard of public health, (ç) a minimum of unnecessary labor, (d) a minimum of wastage of non-replaceable resources, (e) an educational system to train the entire younger generation indiscriminately as regards all considerations other than inherent ability… Continental system of human conditioning.
The achievement of these ends will result from a centralized control with a social organization built along functional lines" Scott and Hubbard, Technocracy Study Course, (Technocracy, Inc., 1934) Page 240
"A strong but non-imperialistic Germany rising to the heights of prosperity through the proper application of technocracy was pictured to the German masses in the usual week-end barrage of speeches by Nazi leaders today" Hitler Demands Troops Lead Reich,” The New York Times , August 21, 1933
"Germany has her own technocratic movement in the Technokratische Union with headquarters in Berlin. Although it has taken its name from its American counterpart, it is not an offshoot of the latter but an indigenous growth. Nevertheless, German technocracy, which has just taken organized form, agrees with the American brand on all but two major points." Germans Modify Our Technocracy,” The New York Times , January 22, 1933
"Like their American economic kin, they are against capitalism, against the profit system and against the gold standard… The German technocratic union is in touch with Howard Scott in New York and dreams of creating an international technocratic organization, which, indeed, its leaders deem indispensable for realizing the technocratic ideal." Germans Modify Our Technocracy,” The New York Times, January 22, 1933
"[The technetronic era] involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled and directed society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite whose claim to political power would rest on allegedly superior scientific know-how. Unhindered by the restraints of traditional liberal values, this elite would not hesitate to achieve its political ends by using the latest modern techniques for influencing public behavior and keeping society under close surveillance and control." Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era Page 252-53, By Zbiginew Brzezinski
"My proposal is to set a global quota for fossil fuel combustion every year, and to share it equally between all the adults in the world." Judith Hanna, “Toward a single carbon currency”, New Scientist, April 29, 1995
"Imagine a country where carbon becomes a new currency. We carry bankcards that store both pounds and carbon points. When we buy electricity, gas and fuel, we use our carbon points, as well as pounds. To help reduce carbon emissions, the Government would set limits on the amount of carbon that could be used." David Miliband The Telegraph 20th of July 2006
"To build a carbon market, its originators must create a currency of carbon credits that participants can trade.” Hannah Fairfield, “When Carbon Is Currency”, The New York Times, May 6, 2007
"Lord Smith of Finsbury believes that implementing individual carbon allowances for every person will be the most effective way of meeting the targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. It would involve people being issued with a unique number which they would hand over when purchasing products that contribute to their carbon footprint, such as fuel, airline tickets and electricity. Like with a bank account, a statement would be sent out each month to help people keep track of what they are using. If their “carbon account” hits zero, they would have to pay to get more credits" Everyone in Britain could be given a personal ‘carbon allowance’”, The Telegraph (UK) , November 9, 2009
"It is now possible to use a plastic card similar to today’s credit card embedded with a microchip. This chip could contain all the information needed to create an energy distribution card as described in this booklet. Since the same information would be provided in whatever forms best suits the latest technology, however, the concept of an “Energy Distribution Card” is what is explained here" An Energy Distribution Card”, Technocracy, Inc., website, 2009 (Adapted from an article in the Technocracy Magazine, July 1937)
"The certificate will be issued directly to the individual. It is nontransferable and nonnegotiable; therefore, it cannot be stolen, lost, loaned, borrowed, or given away. It is noncumulative; therefore, it cannot be saved, and it does not accrue or bear interest. It need not be spent but loses its validity after a designated time period" Howard Scott, “An Energy Distribution Card”, Technocracy Magazine , 1937
"The card will be issued directly to the individual. It is nontransferable and non negotiable; therefore, it cannot be stolen, lost, loaned, borrowed or given away. It is noncumulative; therefore it cannot be saved, and it does not accrue or bear interest. It need not be spent but loses its validity after a designated time period." An Energy Distribution Card”, Technocracy, Inc., website, 2009 (Adapted from an article in the Technocracy Magazine, July 1937, updated version of paragraph above)
"The banks are preparing to do with carbon what they’ve done before: design and market derivatives contracts that will help client companies hedge their price risk over the long term. They’re also ready to sell carbon-related financial products to outside investors" Carbon Capitalists Warming to Climate Market Using Derivatives”, Bloomberg , December 4, 2009
"The nerds are running the show in today’s China. In the twenty years since Deng Xiaoping’s [1978-79] reforms kicked in, the composition of the Chinese leadership has shifted markedly in favor of technocrats. ...It’s no exaggeration to describe the current regime as a technocracy. After the Maoist madness abated and Deng Xiaoping inaugurated the opening and reforms that began in late 1978, scientific and technical intellectuals were among the first to be rehabilitated. Realizing that they were the key to the Four Modernizations embraced by the reformers, concerted efforts were made to bring the “experts” back into the fold. During the 1980s, technocracy as a concept was much talked about, especially in the context of so-called “Neo-Authoritarianism” -- the principle at the heart of the “Asian Developmental Model” that South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan had pursued with apparent success. The basic beliefs and assumptions of the technocrats were laid out quite plainly: Social and economic problems were akin to engineering problems and could be understood, addressed, and eventually solved as such. The open hostility to religion that Beijing exhibits at times -- most notably in its obsessive drive to stamp out the “evil cult” of Falun Gong -- has pre-Marxist roots. Scientism underlies the post-Mao technocracy, and it is the orthodoxy against which heresies are measured" Made In China: Revenge Of The Nerds, Time Magazine , June, 2001
"Both men have been described as “technocrats” in major newspapers. What, exactly, is a technocrat?…An expert, not a politician. Technocrats make decisions based on specialized information rather than public opinion… The word technocrat can also refer to an advocate of a form of government in which experts preside.… in the United States, technocracy was most popular in the early years of the Great Depression. Inspired in part by the ideas of economist Thorstein Veblen, the movement was led by engineer Howard Scott, who proposed radical utopian ideas and solutions to the economic disaster in scientific language. His movement, founded in 1932, drew national interest." What’s a Technocrat”, Slate , November 11, 2011
The Internet, Big Tech and The Relationship With Intelligence, Governments and The Military
"The fact is, as I see it, that the military greatly needs solutions to many or most of the problems that will arise if we tried to make good use of the facilities that are coming into existence. I am hoping that there will be, in our individual efforts, enough evident advantage in cooperative programming and operation to lead us to solve the problems and, thus, to bring into being the technology that the military needs. When problems arise clearly in the military context and seem not to appear in the research context, then ARPA can take steps to handle them on an ad hoc basis. As I say, however, hopefully, many of the problems will be essentially the same, and essentially as important, in the research context as in the military context." J. C. R. Licklider, “Memorandum for Members and Affiliates of the Intergalactic Computer Network,” Advanced Research Projects Agency, April 23, 1963, Edward A. Feigenbaum Papers collection, Stanford University
"The secret computer network was made possible by dramatic breakthroughs in the technique of hooking different makes and models of computers together so they can talk to one another and share information. It’s a whole new technology that not many people know about. If you pay taxes, or use a credit card, if you drive a car, or have ever served in the military, if you’ve ever been arrested, or even investigated by a police agency, if you’ve had major medical expenses or contributed to a national political party, there is information on you somewhere in some computer. Congress has always been afraid that computers, if all linked together, could turn the government into “big brother” with the computers making it dangerously easy to keep tabs on everyone." Surveillance Technology,” Joint Hearings before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Comm. on the Judiciary and the Special Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Commerce of the Comm. on Commerce, US Senate , 94th Cong., 1st sess. (June 23, September 9 and 10, 1975). Page 5
"According to confidential sources, much of the material that was computerized has been copied and transferred, and much of it has been shared with other agencies where it has been integrated into other intelligence files.… In January 1972, at least part of the computerized Army domestic surveillance files were stored in the NSA’s Harvest computer at Fort Meade, Maryland. Through the use of a defense department computer network, the materials were transmitted and copied in Massachusetts at MIT, and were stored at the Army’s Natick Research Center." Surveillance Technology,” Joint Hearings before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Comm. on the Judiciary and the Special Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Commerce of the Comm. on Commerce, US Senate , 94th Cong., 1st sess. (June 23, September 9 and 10, 1975). Page 10
"Larry’s refusal to engage the privacy discussion with the public always frustrated me. I remained convinced we could start with basic information and build an information center that would be clear and forthright about the tradeoffs users made when they entered their queries on Google or any other search engine..Those who truly cared would see we were being transparent. Even if they didn’t like our policies on data collection or retention, they would know what they were. If they went elsewhere to search, they would be taking a chance that our competitors’ practices were far worse than ours,” Douglas Edwards I'm Feeling Lucky, The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 of Page 345
"No. 4417749 conducted hundreds of searches over a three-month period on topics ranging from “numb fingers” to “60 single men” to “dog that urinates on everything.” And search by search, click by click, the identity of AOL user No. 4417749 became easier to discern. There are queries for “landscapers in Lilburn, Ga,” several people with the last name Arnold and “homes sold in shadow lake subdivision gwinnett county georgia.” It did not take much investigating to follow that data trail to Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old widow who lives in Lilburn, Ga., frequently researches her friends’ medical ailments and loves her three dogs" Michael Barbaro and Tom Zeller Jr., “A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749,” New York Times , August 9, 2006
"Allowing the extraction of this content from e-mail messages is likely to have profound consequences for privacy. First, if companies can view private messages to pitch advertising, it is a matter of time before law enforcement will seek access to detect criminal conspiracies. All too often in Washington, one hears policy wonks asking, ‘if credit card companies can analyze your data to sell your cereal, why can’t the FBI mine your data for terrorism" Testimony of Chris Jay Hoofnagle, Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center West Coast Office, Privacy Risks of E-mail Scanning,” California Senate Judiciary Committee, March 15, 2005
"The program, involving a tool called Greyball, uses data collected from the Uber app and other techniques to identify and circumvent officials who were trying to clamp down on the ride-hailing service. Uber used these methods to evade the authorities in cities like Boston, Paris and Las Vegas, and in countries like Australia, China and South Korea." How Uber Deceives the Authorities Worldwide,” New York Times , March 3, 2017
"At the time, Uber had just started its ride-hailing service in Portland without seeking permission from the city, which later declared the service illegal. To build a case against the company, officers like Mr. England posed as riders, opening the Uber app to hail a car and watching as miniature vehicles on the screen made their way toward the potential fares. But unknown to Mr. England and other authorities, some of the digital cars they saw in the app did not represent actual vehicles. And the Uber drivers they were able to hail also quickly canceled. That was because Uber had tagged Mr. England and his colleagues — essentially Greyballing them as city officials — based on data collected from the app and in other ways. The company then served up a fake version of the app, populated with ghost cars, to evade capture" How Uber Deceives the Authorities Worldwide,” New York Times , March 3, 2017
Google’s former CEO, said in a moment of candour in 2010. “Because we know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less guess what you’re thinking about.” He later added: “One day we had a conversation where we figured we could just try to predict the stock market. And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that.” Google’s Earth: how the tech giant is helping the state spy on us, The Guardian 20th of December 2018
"now that In-Q-Tel is six years into its venture history, it has seen more of its companies get acquired, while only 10 of its investments have gone under - a pretty good rate for a VC firm. Digital mapping company Keyhole Corp., for example, was bought by Google in October, 2004." Meet The CIA's Venture Capitalist Posted on May 09, 2005, Bloomberg Businessweek
"In-Q-Tel, a private nonprofit venture funded by the Central Intelligence Agency, today announced a strategic investment in Keyhole Corp., a pioneer of interactive 3D earth visualization. The investment, made in February 2003, was In-Q-Tel’s first engagement with a company on behalf of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA). Immediately demonstrating the value of Keyhole’s technology to the national security community, NIMA used the technology to support United States troops in Iraq. “Within two weeks of In-Q-Tel’s engagement with Keyhole, we implemented the technology to support our mission within the Pentagon,” IN-Q-TEL ANNOUNCES STRATEGIC INVESTMENT IN KEYHOLE JUNE 2003 https://www.iqt.org/in-q-tel-announces-strategic-investment-in-keyhole/.
"The CIA bought one of our Google search appliances for their intranet… “I told our sales rep to give them the okay if they promised not to tell anyone. I didn’t want it spooking privacy advocates,” Douglas Edwards I'm Feeling Lucky, The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 of Page 382
"Google has ramped up its sales force in the Washington area in the past year to adapt its technology products to the needs of the military, civilian agencies and the intelligence community. Already, agencies use enhanced versions of Google's 3-D mapping product, Google Earth, to display information for the military on the ground in Iraq and to track airplanes that fight forest fires across the country" Google Makes Its Pitch to Expand Federal Business By Sara Kehaulani Goo and Alec Klein February 28, 2007
"Yesterday, Google's partner, Lockheed Martin, demonstrated a Google Earth product that it helped design for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's work in Iraq. These included displays of key regions of the country and outlined Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad, as well as U.S. and Iraqi military bases in the city." Google Makes Its Pitch to Expand Federal Business By Sara Kehaulani Goo and Alec Klein February 28, 2007
“Please keep close hold, but my team is planning to launch a tool on Sunday that will publicly track and map the defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from… which we believe are important in encouraging more to defect and giving confidence to the opposition" Email from Jared Cohen, “Syria,” July 25, 2012, WikiLeaks, Hillary Clinton Email Archive
"Google is getting [White House] and State Dept. support & air cover. In reality, they are doing things the CIA cannot do,” wrote Fred Burton, a Stratfor executive, Newsweek
"General Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA and the CIA, called Baker’s comment “absolutely correct,” and raised him one, asserting, “We kill people based on metadata.”
Dave Cole, “We Kill People Based on Metadata,” New York Review of Books , May 10, 2014
"The State Department and two federal agencies - the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the National Science Foundation - are major contributors." Privacy software, criminal use Unintended consequence of Walpole firm’s technology March 08, 2012, By Jenifer B. McKim, Boston Globe Staff
1997: In addition to ONR funding, robustness aspects of Onion Routing are funded by DARPA under High Confidence Networks Program" Onion Routing: Brief Selected History July 6, 2017
"Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011 16:57:39 -0400
From: Michael Reed <reed[at]inet.org>
To: tor-talk[at]lists.torproject.org
Subject: Re: [tor-talk] Iran cracks down on web dissident technology
On 03/22/2011 12:08 PM, Watson Ladd wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 11:23 AM, Joe Btfsplk<joebtfsplk[at]gmx.com> wrote:
>> Why would any govt create something their enemies can easily use against them, then continue funding it once they know it helps the enemy, if a govt has absolutely no control over it? It's that simple. It would seem a very bad idea. Stop looking at it from a conspiracy standpoint & consider it as a common sense question. Because it helps the government as well. An anonymity network that only the US government uses is fairly useless. One that everyone uses is much more useful, and if your enemies use it as well that's very good, because then they can't cut off access without undoing their own work.
BINGO, we have a winner! The original *QUESTION* posed that led to the
invention of Onion Routing was, "Can we build a system that allows for bi-directional communications over the Internet where the source and destination cannot be determined by a mid-point?" The *PURPOSE* was for DoD / Intelligence usage (open source intelligence gathering, covering of forward deployed assets, whatever). Not helping dissidents in repressive countries. Not assisting criminals in covering their electronic tracks. Not helping bit-torrent users avoid MPAA/RIAA prosecution. Not giving a 10 year old a way to bypass an anti-porn filter. Of course, we knew those would be other unavoidable uses for the technology, but that was immaterial to the problem at hand we were trying to solve (and if those uses were going to give us more cover traffic to better hide what we wanted to use the network for, all the better... I once told a flag officer that much to his chagrin). I should know, I was the recipient of that question from David, and Paul was brought into the mix a few days later after I had sketched out a basic (flawed) design for the original Onion Routing.
The short answer to your question of "Why would the government do this?" is because it is in the best interests of some parts of the government to have this capability... Now enough of the conspiracy theories...
-Michael"
Paul Syverson, email message sent to [tor-talk], “Iran cracks down on web dissident technology,” Tor Project, March 22, 2011
"We also need to think about a strategy for how to spin this move in terms of Tor's overall direction. I would guess that we don't want to loudly declare war on China, since this only harms our goals? But we also don't want to hide the existence of funding from IBB, since "they're getting paid off by the feds and they didn't tell anyone" sounds like a bad Slashdot title for a security project. Is it sufficient just to always Talk about Iran, or is that not subtle enough?
>Roger - we will do any spin you want to do to help preserve the independence of TOR. We can't (nor should we) hide it for the reasons you have outlined below, but we also don't want to shout if from the rafters, either " Ken Berman, email message sent to Roger Dingledine, “Tor + IBB: moving forward,” February 24, 2006
Radio Free Asia - CIA front that was taken over by Broadcasting Board Of Governors
"Other previous employers include the MIT network security team, a summer internship at the National Security Agency" Roger Dingledine, curriculum vitae, accessed March 8, 2008, https://www.freehaven.net/~arma/cv.html
"Some Egyptian youth leaders attended a 2008 technology meeting in New York, where they were taught to use social networking and mobile technologies to promote democracy. Among those sponsoring the meeting were Facebook, Google, MTV, Columbia Law School and the State Department...We learned how to organize and build coalitions,” said Bashem Fathy, a founder of the youth movement that ultimately drove the Egyptian uprisings. Mr. Fathy, who attended training with Freedom House, said, “This certainly helped during the revolution." Ron Nixon, “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings,” New York Times , April 14, 2011
"The money spent on these programs was minute compared with efforts led by the Pentagon. But as American officials and others look back at the uprisings of the Arab Spring, they are seeing that the United States’ democracy-building campaigns played a bigger role in fomenting protests than was previously known, with key leaders of the movements having been trained by the Americans in campaigning, organizing through new media tools and monitoring elections." This certainly helped during the revolution." Ron Nixon, “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings,” New York Times , April 14, 2011
"The cables, in particular, show how leaders in the Middle East and North Africa viewed these groups with deep suspicion, and tried to weaken them. Today the work of these groups is among the reasons that governments in turmoil claim that Western meddling was behind the uprisings, with some officials noting that leaders like Ms. Qadhi were trained and financed by the United States." This certainly helped during the revolution." Ron Nixon, “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings,” New York Times , April 14, 2011
Announcement on Alliance of Youth Movements Summit, December 3–5: Summit Brings Youth Groups, Tech Experts Together to Promote Freedom,” US Department of State press release, America.gov, November 18, 2008 (This effort was launched by Alec Ross and his State Department colleague Jared Cohen, who would later head up Google’s JigSaw think tank)
Transhumanism
"The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself —not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature. “I believe in transhumanism”: once there are enough people who can truly say that, the human species will be on the threshold of a new kind of existence, as different from ours as ours is from that of Peking man. It will at last be consciously fulfilling its real destiny." Julian Huxley, New Bottles for New Wine , (Peters Fraser & Dunlop, 1957) Page 17
"The key breakthrough in the new computer technology was made at a little known unit of the Defense Department—the Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA. ARPA scientists created something new in computer communications with this device, it’s known as the IMP, the interface message processor. Different computers communicate in different computer languages. Before the IMP it was enormously difficult, in many cases impossible, to link the various computers. The IMP, in effect, translates all computer messages into a common language. That makes it very very easy to tie them into a network. The government is now using this new technology in a secret computer network that gives the White House, the CIA, and the Defense Department access to FBI and Treasury Department computer files on 5 million Americans. The network, and it is referred to as “the network,” is now in operation.… This means that from computer terminals now in place at the White House, the CIA, or the Pentagon, an official can push a button and get whatever information there might be on you in the FBI’s vast computer files. Those files include records from local police agencies which are hooked to the FBI by computer." Transcripts of Ford Rowan’s June 1975 NBC broadcasts were read into the Congressional Record . “Surveillance Technology,” Joint Hearings before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Comm. on the Judiciary and the Special Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Commerce of the Comm. on Commerce, US Senate , 94th Cong., 1st sess. (June 23, September 9 and 10, 1975) Page 5
"The men who ran the domestic war room kept records not unlike those maintained by their counterparts in the computerized war rooms in Saigon" Army Surveillance of Civilians: A Documentary Analysis,”Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, Comm. on the Judiciary, US Senate , 92nd Cong., 2nd sess. (1972) Page 93
"Army intelligence was not just reconnoitering cities for bivouac sites, approach routes and Black Panther arsenals. It was collecting, disseminating, and storing amounts of data on the private and personal affairs of law-abiding citizens. Comments about the financial affairs, sex lives, and psychiatric histories of persons unaffiliated with the armed forces appear throughout the various records systems" Army Surveillance of Civilians: A Documentary Analysis,”Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, Comm. on the Judiciary, US Senate , 92nd Cong., 2nd sess. (1972) Page 96
"Demonstrators and rioters were not regarded as American citizens with possibly legitimate grievances, but as ‘dissident forces’ deployed against the established order. Given this conception of dissent, it is not surprising that army intelligence would collect information on the political and private lives of the dissenters. The military doctrines governing counterintelligence, counterinsurgency, and civil affairs operations demanded it" Army Surveillance of Civilians: A Documentary Analysis,” Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, Comm. on the Judiciary, US Senate , 92nd Cong., 2nd sess. (1972) Page V
"Many of the records undoubtedly have been destroyed; many others undoubtedly have been hidden away.… On two subsequent occasions it was learned that the Intelligence Command had failed to carry out orders to destroy its computerized files on civilians unaffiliated with the armed forces.… The order to destroy the mug books was issued on February 18, 1970, but as of August 26, 1970, less than half had been reported destroyed.… " Army Surveillance of Civilians: A Documentary Analysis,” Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, Comm. on the Judiciary, US Senate , 92nd Cong., 2nd sess. (1972) Page VI, 42,8 ( not a natural quote)
A simple guide to GCHQ's internet surveillance programme Tempora By KADHIM SHUBBER 24 Jun 2013, Wired
"It's not just a US problem. The UK has a huge dog in this fight," Snowden told the Guardian. "They [GCHQ] are worse than the US." GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world's communications By Ewen MacAskill, Julian Borger, Nick Hopkins, Nick Davies and James Ball 21 Jun 2013, the Guardian
"The report said the UK now had the "biggest internet access in Five Eyes" – the group of intelligence organisations from the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. "We are in the golden age," the report added." Mastering the internet: how GCHQ set out to spy on the world wide web Ewen MacAskill, Julian Borger, Nick Hopkins, Nick Davies and James Ball 21 Jun 2013, The Guardian
"It resulted in one of the stranger episodes in the history of digital-age journalism. On Saturday 20 July, in a deserted basement of the Guardian's King's Cross offices, a senior editor and a Guardian computer expert used angle grinders and other tools to pulverise the hard drives and memory chips on which the encrypted files had been stored. As they worked they were watched by technicians from Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) who took notes and photographs, but who left empty-handed." NSA files: why the Guardian in London destroyed hard drives of leaked files Julian Borger, 20 Aug 2013, The Guardian
“NSA slides explain PRISM”, The Washington Post , June 6, 2013, The NSA Wiretapping Story That Nobody Wanted”, PC World , July 17, 2009
"The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April…. The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries." NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily”, The Guardian (UK) , June 5, 2013
"The engineering problems are so immense, in systems of such complexity and frequent change, that the FBI and NSA would be hard pressed to build in back doors without active help from each company.” Barton Gellman and Laura Poitras, “U.S., British Intelligence Mining Data from Nine U.S. Internet Companies in Broad Secret Program,” Washington Post , June 7, 2013
"Microsoft was the first to join in 2007. Yahoo! came online a year later, and Facebook and Google plugged in to PRISM in 2009. Skype and AOL both joined in 2011. Apple, the laggard of the bunch, joined the surveillance system in 2012" NSA Prism Program Slides,” Guardian , November 1, 2013