The Coming Wave Of High-Tech Authoritarianism

One of history’s hard lessons is that collapsing financial systems beget authoritarian politics…

Today’s world, alas, is following this script, as rising debts lead to wrenching political changes in nearly every country that holds free elections, while fascism and socialism are once again being taken seriously by people who in normal times would inhabit the political center.

But there’s one big difference this time around: the advanced state of social control technology. Past governments, when trying to tamp down dissent, were limited to blunt-instrument policies like curfews, phone taps and press shutdowns. Today’s would-be Big Brothers can do vastly more, and in many cases will use the coming financial/political emergency as an excuse to place Orwell’s proverbial boot on their citizens’ necks.

Some examples from a recent Wall Street Journal article titled The Autocrat’s New Tool Kit:

Chinese authorities are now using the tools of big data to detect departures from “normal” behavior among Muslims in the country’s Xinjiang region—and then to identify each supposed deviant for further state attention.

The Egyptian government plans to relocate from Cairo later this year to a still-unnamed new capital that will have, as the project’s spokesman put it, “cameras and sensors everywhere,” with “a command center to control the entire city.”

Moscow already has some 5,000 cameras installed with facial-recognition technology, and it can match faces of interest to photos from passport databases, police files and social media.

But scary as these things sound, they’re crude compared to what’s coming. From the same WSJ article:

“Microtargeting” enables governments to build personality assessments of citizens and tailor propaganda for targets’ psychological weak spots. Russia’s Internet Research Agency reportedly harvested data from Facebook to craft specific messages for individual voters during the 2016 US presidential race. Private firms are developing artificial intelligence that can automate this customization for whole populations.

Bots – algorithms that emulate human posters – will soon be indistinguishable from humans online, which is to say capable of denouncing anti-regime activists, attacking rivals and amplifying state messaging in lifelike ways.

Deep fakes. It is now possible to create images, voices and videos that are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. Targets will have no way of knowing whether what they’re seeing and hearing is real or a government-generated fake.

AI profiling. Artificial intelligence is learning to extract “attitude, emotion and intent” from our social media posts, giving governments the ability to see dissent coming before it can coalesce into unrest.

Extremely smart cards. Venezuela has introduced its own “carnet de la patria” (fatherland card), a smart-chip-based piece of identification that citizens need to get access to government services such as health care and subsidized food. Human Rights Watch reports that the card may capture voting history as well.

Super-human facial recognition. We’re good at recognizing familiar faces. Tomorrow’s computer networks will be vastly better. Already, the Chinese have deployed facial-recognition glasses, and are selling the tech in Africa and Europe. Such glasses can be used to help identify criminals like thieves and drug dealers—or to hunt human-rights activists and pro-democracy protesters.

Smart cities. Combine the Internet of Things with Big Data analytics and you get entire cities where cameras cover every outdoor inch and using public services like busses require biometric ID. Some Chinese restaurants already have “smile to pay” systems that interpret facial expressions.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-19/coming-wave-high-tech-authoritarianism

Mueller’s Team Requests Delay, Claims it Can’t Meet Court Deadline

Robert Mueller’s team of corrupt Obama/Hillary donors requested a delay, claiming they couldn’t meet a court deadline.

According to court papers filed on Tuesday in case brought by The Washington Post, Mueller’s team said they were unable to meet a court deadline because of the “press of other work.”

The filing was vague and did not provide any details so it is unclear if the work Mueller’s team was referencing is related to concluding the Russia investigation or if the prosecutors are busy with unrelated matters.

The Washington Post is seeking documents in Paul Manafort’s case — Mueller’s team responded by saying they need until April 1st to respond and ‘consult within the government,’ AP reported.

Mueller is reportedly wrapping up his corrupt, multi-million dollar investigation and working to issue a final report on Trump although his team if already funded through September.

Mueller’s top prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann, a corrupt DC swamp dweller, stepped down last Thursday — many speculate AG Bill Barr gave Weissmann the boot.

Mueller’s report will be very damaging to President Trump and will be used as fodder by the Democrats to attack Trump during the 2020 election cycle.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/03/just-in-muellers-team-requests-delay-claims-it-cant-meet-court-deadline/

Democratic Candidate Andrew Yang Promises Government Crackdown On ‘Misinformation’

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang says the federal government will punish media companies for the spread of misinformation if he wins in 2020.

Yang’s proposal would introduce “penalties for persistent and destructive misstatements that undermine public discourse,” according to his campaign website.

“We must introduce both a means to investigate and punish those who are seeking to misinform the American public. If enough citizens complain about a particular source of information and news is demonstrably and deliberately false, there should be penalties,” Yang explains on his website.

https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/19/andrew-yang-misinformation/

Meth Is Back With A Vengeance

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that opioid-related deaths are starting to plateau, officials fret a surge in methamphetamine-related deaths could contribute to the next leg up in the American drug overdose crisis.

There were 1,854 meth-related deaths reported in 2010. By 2017, more than 10,300 deaths were linked to meth and or chemically-similar psychostimulants, which is a 550% jump from 2010.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-19/methamphetamine-back-vengeance-us-drug-officials-warn

CNN wins journalism award for post-Parkland town hall that blatantly advocated for gun control

How was that journalism?

CNN received a prestigious journalism award for a televised town hall event after the Parkland, Florida massacre that was really a gun control advocacy event at which conservatives were berated and verbally abused, according to Hot Air.

In the wake of the mass killing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018, CNN set up an event that included some survivors of the tragedy, National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch, Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, and Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel.

The event was not remotely journalistic in nature; instead, it was set up to scapegoat conservatives Rubio and Loesch as having contributed to the tragedy by way of their views on gun rights.

Still, the University of Southern California's Norman Lear Center awarded CNN the "Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism," even though the event itself was titled "The Students of Stoneman Douglas Demand Action." It was activism, not journalism.

Hot Air's Allahpundit summarized what the event, and the award, say about the state of mainstream media:

It was embarrassing all the way through, less town hall than mob catharsis, and of course they're being rewarded for it by industry watchdogs rather than reprimanded. If you wonder why big media is frequently so terrible, this is a small part of the answer: They're incentivized to be that way by their own gatekeepers.

One of the lowlights of the event was when Parkland survivor Cameron Kasky told Rubio that he couldn't look at him "and not look down the barrel of an AR-15 and not look at Nikolas Cruz" before demanding that Rubio reject any future support from the NRA.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/cnn-wins-journalism-award-for-post-parkland-town-hall-blatantly-advocating-for-gun-control