Polanyi blamed failures of Capitalism for the rise of authoritarian regimes in the lead-up to World War II. This time, the failures are deeper and broader. Similar things have happened before. That did not end well.
I’d forgotten about the biometrics database. There’s no intent to stop at facial recognition. I’ve heard gait analysis and voice metrics mentioned. That the legislation has been held up on privacy grounds is a positive. That the concept is broadly supported isn’t.
Meanwhile, we can’t have people saying what our government doesn’t want heard:
There is nothing stopping the media from reporting the truth accurately right now except their own corruption. Note their silence about the farce of Julian Assange?
Read Counterpunch.org as an example of quality reporting with everything properly sourced and cross referenced. The difference with Counterpunch is most of what they have predicted has come to pass including the 2008 financial meltdown.
I would not call what they do corruption per se, but it seems like open partisanship on one hand, and kissing up to government on the other.
Regarding Counterpunch, it appears to be more a collection of op-eds than a news source. As for where it sits on the spectrum, one can agree with this assessment or not.
Substantial bias with a penchant for questionable sources, which is probably why I’d never heard of it.
Given the raids on journalists and threats from our government, is it rational to deny that there’s anything chilling comment on said government’s behaviour?
Yes definitely Counterpunch is presenting a Left Wing perspective but this is the whole point as in the title. The ABC here have a RN program called Counterpoint which I believe was setup to be deliberately right wing accepting the perceived left wing bias of the ABC. Readers of Counterpunch.org can compare to what hey hear every hour on the main stream media (MSM) and make their own minds up. The reference you point ot states " A factual search reveals they have not failed a fact check and yet they attempt to smear Counterpunch by claiming that they referenced Assange when he was (they say) “clearly lying” about Seth Rich but remarkably further state “Assange never came out and said it, but his “ statements about Rich implied falsely that he had been the source of the stolen DNC emails”. Yes we still don’t know what happened to Seth Rich but it appears he is now been used to smear Assange.
What we do know is that Clinton’s email server was NEVER forensically tested by FBI as was mentioned a few months ago here on Q&A but refuted by Tony Jones. Where was the ABC fact check on this point then?
[Edit: some comments redacted to avoid going off topic]
Your points are taken although far left is as problematic as far right, but the topic is about step and overstep and overt control rather than bias, and is not intended to argue political points although some politically inspired activities such as related law and proposed laws, and potentially AFP raids, would be difficult to ignore in that context.
Hi all, thanks for the interesting conversation here so far. While we’re happy to allow case studies and examples to inform the discussion, we generally keep to consumer topics and away from politics, especially international politics, in the CHOICE forum (except for when the issues directly involve these matters). For this reason I removed some comments, please get in touch via DM if you feel we’ve made an error, otherwise we look forward to reading your thoughts on the issues at hand
I agree the AFP raids are concerning but my angle concerns the ability of the media to push back which is greatly diminished when they consistently fail to hold those in power accountable. Public confidence in the media is at an all time low for a good reason some of which I tried to highlight.
I’m not meaning to have a political discussion but pointing out how far short journalism has fallen allowing manipulators like Trump to, at times, accurately point to what he calls fake news. I believe if the media played a streighter bat the public would recognise this and rally behind them to make it near impossible for Government to push them around as in the case of the recent AFP raids.
“We have the confession extracted from the prisoner as proof.”
Fortunately we no longer approve of the Tudor England methods of extracting confessions as evidence. Technology has found a whole new suite of ways to impose mental anguish and submission?
Looking back more than several decades of IT, one of the greatest risks for abuse of such systems comes from within!
Over reach of various organisations and departments etc is an obvious risk already raised.
Additionally how much access do uses have to such systems, their data loads, and ability to use or repurpose content? In part answer protections depend on the design of the managing software, authentication and data integrity/change management.
The more comprehensive such systems and extensive their use the greater the risk? Is there any assurance breeches once identified will be publicly declared by the government owners? ‘Trust me, I’m from the ATO and I am here to help you’, might need a small rewrite with the target, ‘the department of home affairs’?
‘Hello, trust us, we’re from the Dept of Home Affairs, and you’re here to help us!’
That was what I commented on above, having seen the submission by Home Affairs. Who is using whom? Home Affairs just looking for any excuse to get traction with their facial recognition database when in reality they are pursuing their fascist agenda? Or the pornophobes using the heft of Home Affairs to push their religious conservative agenda?
It is unclear how this would work on a computer without a camera. Will need a virtual image capture device that just feeds canned images of your favourite politician.
I assume this technology will automatically reject ScoMo’s face because that’s who I would use. LOL. Home Affairs will be wondering why ScoMo is wanting to look at porn thousands of times an hour all across the country.
It is sadly worse. Combine fascist predilections, hard right wing world views, dictatorial ‘leadership’, complete ignorance about technology and we have what appears to be a clone of our current government. History also tells us what something a government does good it often gets dismantled by partisanship but when it does bad that ‘bad’ is more often nurtured, as governments change.
Home Affairs is the “dark heart” of the government, pursuing a relentless agenda of oppressive legislation. A Fascial [sic] Recognition Database would just be the current, not the first oppressive agenda item we know for sure, and not the last I would very safely predict.
