Someone had mentioned violence in second life a few weeks ago and asked the question "How long until terrorism spreads into second life?" I have since been wondering if terrorists could actually accomplish anything by entering into second life, as any damage in the world is not what I consider "real." However, I did not stop to think enough about other effects they could have. I recently came across this articles that talks about how al-Qaida or other groups may use virtual worlds to recruit new members, transfer funds in a way that cannot be traced, and engage in training exercises that may be useful in real life.
The article is very interesting and speaks more about possible ways that our government can monitor this growing problem, whether legally or illegally.
3 comments:
I think your last phrase sums it up. The article author says:
"Could all the recent discussion of terrorists disguised as avatars be just another bogeyman to support an argument for wide-ranging electronic surveillance by the U.S. government, at will and free from oversight?
I totally agree with that. We all know that scaring the beejezus out of the "unwired majority" is an easy way to gain support for repressive measures and the all-important invasion (or elimination) of privacy in the name of the tired "national security"
Like so many things, I think there is probably mixed motives in these kind of actions. Are there sincere people in our government who are truly seeking to protect American citizens through projects like these? I would argue that there are. Otherwise you are left with a very dark view of a government that employs over 2.7 million people who are all hell-bent on eliminating citizen privacy and controlling every aspect of our lives.
Are there some who do have this motive? Most likely. But that does not mean that our government can't do anything without a good motive. No it does not.
And if you do believe that our government is completely corrupt, then perhaps you would want to follow the advice of Thomas Jefferson:
"when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce [the people] under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." --Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence, 1776. ME 1:29, Papers 1:429"
Thomas Jefferson's advice was followed to some extent by an entire generation of young people who risked death, imprisonment and exile to oppose a previous infamous war. And they were able at the end to effect a change in the government if not overthrow it, while obtaining the basic freedoms that we supposedly enjoy today.
When people talk about the deterioration of citizen rights in this country they don't refer to the 2.7 million people which like us (we are after all "government employees) are trying to serve or educate instead of destroy other people's lives and sacrificing their own children.
They are referring specifically to the powerful cartel which dominates American politics at the very top, in favor of the bottomless pockets of their immense and immoral greed.
In order to continue doing this, it is essential that the citizenry live in fear of the boogeyman so that they can strip every vestige of privacy while at the same time providing false "comforts" and apparent liberties like the so called "freedom of speech" as long as it is carefully monitored and controlled.
And as long as the boogeyman is carefully placed in a far away and alien country (preferably non-white and oil rich) they figure that they can distract and actually entertain the masses by providing spectacles of power at the tune of trillions of dollars siphoned out from the very needy pockets of each and everyone of those of us that don't belong to the club that Bush refered to as the "have, and have mores[sic]".
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