Stallman is my favorite gnu-nutjob. I love my smart phone and other devices. He makes some interesting statements.
I make these same arguments, but people just don’t want to hear it.
Most folks have no reason to fear observation by big brother. But if you’re outspoken in the area of politics or even religion, your fear is justified. It’s the age we live in.
I don’t own a cell phone. Have no use for them. I use a landline 3 or 4 times a month. It’s not worth the expense for someone like me to have a mobile phone. Besides, when I go out the front door, I don’t want to be found. If I’m walking the beach or in the forest, a ringing phone would ruin the experience.
There’s some things you can’t do anything about. Like asteroids and polka music. If you want to carry around a tracking device with you, it’s your business. It might be somebody else’s business too.
x
with Obama signing the NDAA bill, the US of A is one step closer to a well you can figure it out. the new battlefiend and enemy are the citczens of the usa.
gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112h … 540enr.pdf
little by little since 9/11 the constitution and freedoms of the american people have been gradualy replased for your saftey. And Harper is sure to follow…
Personally I think Stallman should use a stair master and worry less about cell phones. 
Little Brother is watching as well.
Thanks to Social Media, and the exact same connected devices, we now have a new un-censorable connection to each other. That’s what happened in the Middle East in 2011, anyway. And continues to happen.
The most repressive governments on Earth can’t keep their own people down, thanks to their smartphones.
Sure the technology is used by governments. But there’s another side to that coin. The technology is also used by citizens to keep their governments accountable, and to overthrow unaccountable governments. I’m sure we all can think up examples of where a smartphone has kept our own government (cough cough RCMP) accountable.
We can probably find some even more local examples if we tried.
Relevant: cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/2011/1 … ab-spring/
"Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT, looks at the “cute cat” theory of internet activism, and how it helps explain the Arab Spring. He discusses how activists around the world are turning to social media tools which are extremely powerful, easy to use and difficult for governments to censor. "
On a somewhat related note I am deeply troubled by the extremely brutal crack down that Assad is deploying to crush the revolt in Syria. I think that the people will prevail.
There used to be a saying about government actions in the Middle East: “Hama Rules” – the governments could do whatever they wanted to their own citizens, under the “Hama Rules.” By the time the rest of the world found about their actions, it would be too late to do anything even if they wanted.
It was coined after the 1982 massacre in Hama, Syria: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hama_massacre
Would it have been different if the victims had smart phones and social networks? If the rest of the world saw what was happening?
[quote=“MiG”]There used to be a saying about government actions in the Middle East: “Hama Rules” – the governments could do whatever they wanted to their own citizens, under the “Hama Rules.” By the time the rest of the world found about their actions, it would be too late to do anything even if they wanted.
It was coined after the 1982 massacre in Hama, Syria: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hama_massacre
Would it have been different if the victims had smart phones and social networks? If the rest of the world saw what was happening?[/quote]
The thing that I find very troubling is that Assad is perhaps even more brutal than Gaddafi was. The human cost for democracy is very high in Syria.