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ThorGoLucky
Snuggle Wolf
USA
1486 Posts |
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teched246
Skeptic Friend
123 Posts |
 Posted - 06/13/2013 : 07:19:12 [Permalink]
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GEORGE ORWELL'S '1984' BOOK SALES SKYROCKET IN WAKE OF NSA SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/orwell-1984-sales_n_3423185.html
June 8, 1949, George Orwell published a novel describing a fictitious world gripped in the vise of constant war and a society held captive by the ever-watchful gaze of a shadowy totalitarian dictator known as "Big Brother." The book has since found relevance again and again in our modern world.
This week, in the wake of the ongoing National Security Administration surveillance scandal, dystopian classic 1984 is again experiencing a resurgence in popularity.
Sales of at least three editions of 1984 have skyrocketed in recent days, according to Amazon's Movers & Shakers page, which tracks items with the biggest positive sales change over the past 24 hours. Sales of the Centennial Edition of the book, for instance, had increased by more than 4,000 percent as of Tuesday afternoon. The book was ranked fifth on the Movers & Shakers list at press time.
(Orwell's Animal Farm, another dystopian classic, has also seen an increase in popularity of more than 250 percent.)
As the Los Angeles Times points out, President Obama even referenced 1984 last week as he defended the NSA's broad and controversial Internet surveillance program, details of which recently leaked to the public.
"In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential program run amok, but when you actually look at the details, then I think we've struck the right balance," Obama said.
Google searches for the novel, oft cited as one of the 20th century's best works of fiction, have also increased in recent days, notes Andrew Kaczynski of Buzzfeed.
However, though speculation is rife that the spike in sales has been triggered by the NSA allegations, the Washington Examiner notes that the anniversary of the book's publication may have also contributed to the spike in sales. |
"For all things have been baptized in the well of eternity and are beyond good
and evil; and good and evil themselves are but intervening shadows and damp
depressions and drifting clouds.Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy
when I teach: ‘Over all things stand the heaven Accident, the heaven
Innocence, the heaven Chance, the heaven Prankishness." -Nietzsche |
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teched246
Skeptic Friend
123 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2013 : 07:24:18 [Permalink]
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| So now that the majority of people are now taking conspiracies serious, I guess it's no longer cool to deem someone a "nut" (as far as conspiracies are concerned), or better yet you'd have to be "nut" yourself to deny that world leaders are conspiring against and malicious towards the people. |
"For all things have been baptized in the well of eternity and are beyond good
and evil; and good and evil themselves are but intervening shadows and damp
depressions and drifting clouds.Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy
when I teach: ‘Over all things stand the heaven Accident, the heaven
Innocence, the heaven Chance, the heaven Prankishness." -Nietzsche |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2013 : 08:13:43 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by teched246
So now that the majority of people are now taking conspiracies serious, I guess it's no longer cool to deem someone a "nut" (as far as conspiracies are concerned), or better yet you'd have to be "nut" yourself to deny that world leaders are conspiring against and malicious towards the people.
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Um what?
No one has ever denied that some conspiracies exist or that world leaders can and will be self-serving amoral jerks.
We only take issues with the laughable and unevidenced "conspiracies", such HBO owning Cinemax, oh wait, such as Bigfoot's trip to Mars..
This NSA thing barely qualifies, finding out that the NSA is spying on everything is about as shocking as a politician misquoting his opponent. It's a spy agency with the budget of a medium sized country in the most powerful nation on Earth. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2013 : 09:02:59 [Permalink]
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| If an intelligence agency legally gathering data is a "conspiracy," then Home Depot is "conspiring" to sell power tools. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2013 : 10:35:30 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
If an intelligence agency legally gathering data is a "conspiracy," then Home Depot is "conspiring" to sell power tools.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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teched246
Skeptic Friend
123 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2013 : 05:06:02 [Permalink]
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| Americans have no balls or will. This wouldn't tolerated in Iceland. |
"For all things have been baptized in the well of eternity and are beyond good
and evil; and good and evil themselves are but intervening shadows and damp
depressions and drifting clouds.Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy
when I teach: ‘Over all things stand the heaven Accident, the heaven
Innocence, the heaven Chance, the heaven Prankishness." -Nietzsche |
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teched246
Skeptic Friend
123 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2013 : 05:17:04 [Permalink]
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| No sense of freedom either. It's been years since I expatriated and haved lived in the nordic countries ever since, and now I ask you, my former countrymen, have you guys really deteriorated to such a level of cynicism that you're now justifying your lack of freedom for the sake of a nominal, mock, or caricatured form of skepticism? |
"For all things have been baptized in the well of eternity and are beyond good
and evil; and good and evil themselves are but intervening shadows and damp
depressions and drifting clouds.Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy
when I teach: ‘Over all things stand the heaven Accident, the heaven
Innocence, the heaven Chance, the heaven Prankishness." -Nietzsche |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2013 : 06:47:18 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by teched246
Americans have no balls or will. This wouldn't tolerated in Iceland. |
The fact that I disagreed with you about whether it's a "conspiracy" doesn't have anything to do with whether I think it should be tolerated.| ...I ask you, my former countrymen, have you guys really deteriorated to such a level of cynicism that you're now justifying your lack of freedom for the sake of a nominal, mock, or caricatured form of skepticism? |
As above: telling you that you're wrong doesn't do anything to justify the program. The fact that it is legal, thanks to a SCOTUS ruling from the 1970s, needs to change.
And the fact that the best moral or political arguments are grounded in reality means that to compromise my skepticism is to compromise my freedom. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2013 : 09:33:57 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
The fact that it is legal, thanks to a SCOTUS ruling from the 1970s, needs to change.
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What was that 70s SCOTUS ruling? Thanks. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2013 : 11:17:18 [Permalink]
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| I forget the name, but it was the one where they ruled that if you use a third party to communicate (like the phone company), you have no expectation to privacy of who you called or for how long. I'll look it up in a bit, when I have more time. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2013 : 18:18:18 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
I forget the name, but it was the one where they ruled that if you use a third party to communicate (like the phone company), you have no expectation to privacy of who you called or for how long. I'll look it up in a bit, when I have more time.
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I believe you provided enough info for a search is this what you were talking about? United States v. Miller (1976) and Smith v. Maryland (1979)
Ran across a discussion about these here. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 06/24/2013 : 19:56:57 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
I forget the name, but it was the one where they ruled that if you use a third party to communicate (like the phone company), you have no expectation to privacy of who you called or for how long. I'll look it up in a bit, when I have more time.
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Here in Brazil your communications data's privacy (who you called and for how long, how often, etc.) is a constitutional right, as much as the privacy of the communications themselves (such as tuning in to your phone conversations). The phone company may store it - it needs to - but they cannot legally disclose it. No, not even to the government. Only with a judge's permit, and only with a very good justification (read: you're accused of a crime and the investigation needs this information). Otherwise any evidence at all, including derived, gathered this way is immediately discarded because it's illegal (fruits of the poisoned tree and all).
Then again, our constitution was written after decades of dictatorship, so I guess that makes perfect sense, all things considered. |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 06/25/2013 : 07:58:25 [Permalink]
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Yeah, it'd be Smith, since Miller was about bank checks.
I'm sure the cops in the Smith case could have coached the person Smith was harassing to get him to say something really incriminating over the phone, in which case they would have had probable cause to get a warrant for the phone metadata and there would have been no 4th Amendment question at all.
As it was (and is, with the NSA), they merely went with a "reasonable suspicion" and got a judge to issue a subpoena, which was/is good enough for phone companies to turn over everything under the "third party doctrine."
What's interesting about the debate you found, moakley, is that neither side addresses the idea that signing up for an online service and agreeing to the Terms of Service - including a Privacy Policy - instills in the customer an actual expectation of privacy. Shouldn't the argument be that for a "reasonable person," agreeing to a privacy policy means that you expect the third party to actually keep your data private? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 06/25/2013 : 08:10:56 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Siberia
Then again, our constitution was written after decades of dictatorship, so I guess that makes perfect sense, all things considered. |
Our Constitution was written nearly 100 years before the incorporation of the Bell Telephone Company. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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ThorGoLucky
Snuggle Wolf
USA
1486 Posts |
Posted - 06/25/2013 : 11:51:43 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Siberia
Then again, our constitution was written after decades of dictatorship, so I guess that makes perfect sense, all things considered. |
Our Constitution was written nearly 100 years before the incorporation of the Bell Telephone Company.
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USA Democracy version 0.18 beta
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The Mind of the Conspiracy Theorist
