cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/57002935

The Trump administration is on its way to creating every authoritarian’s dream: a centralized database containing intimate details about every resident of this country, fully searchable by artificial intelligence. This powerful tool would empower the government to conduct previously unimagined levels of surveillance and harassment against its own people.

Freedom of the Press Foundation is suing the administration for documents behind the database. We know that this isn’t just something that the Trump administration would exploit; once built, it’s unlikely any administration could resist the urge to weaponize our personal information.

This nightmare privacy scenario began one year ago, when President Donald Trump issued an executive order that expanded data sharing across the federal government. The administration touted the order, “Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos,” as a way to target fraud within a supposedly bloated government.

The order was no such thing.

  • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    I wish it was just trump. Remember Snowden in 2013? I can only imagine the level of surveillance they have nowadays.

    • IAmYouButYouDontKnowYet@reddthat.com
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      18 hours ago

      Marketing too… You look at the history of psychology and marketing and how it was bad with cable tv and magazines and politics as well in that era. But now we have our entire lives tracked and psychological manipulation working on us basically constantly.

      The human story isn’t a genuine one anymore, the path of humanity is created artificially. Our own lives probably aren’t the natural lives we were meant to have. We are losing genuine humanity.

      …and this is what we are supposed to be willing to die to defend.

      • MalReynolds@slrpnk.net
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        17 hours ago

        Marketers / advertisers are corrupt psychologists (the competent ones anyway), or to use oldspeak propogandists. Some timeless words for consideration.

        “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” – Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda, 1933 to 1945

        “Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will.” – Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda, 1933 to 1945

        • IAmYouButYouDontKnowYet@reddthat.com
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          7 hours ago

          Gahh… It goes deeper!!

          I like the idea of calling advertisers corrupt psychologist.

          But I think it’s to the point even the psychology and academic industries get bought out. In a way almost like the prison system. I think we have reached a point people can go to school, get a career, and live the American dream, successfully in their eyes and in the eyes of America, without realizing in the end they are working for something that abuses honest humanity.

          I hate being OCD and going down these rabbit holes. I used to just settle with the idea 50% of anything is evil and leave it at that. But now it seems like the majority is either evil or completely owned/useless in terms of living for genuine humanity. So many people are used.