Tag: Silicon Valley

Ashton Kutcher’s NGO Supplies Police with ‘Free’ CIA-linked Surveillance Tool to ‘Protect Kids’

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Ashton Kutcher’s NGO Supplies Police with ‘Free’ CIA-linked Surveillance Tool to ‘Protect Kids’

Yet, further investigation into Thorn casts even greater doubt on its professed altruistic objectives, given the organization’s ties to CIA cut-outs, Wall Street banks and another “anti-child trafficking” organization that was launched by Hillary Clinton and Cherie Blair, the wife of former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Wikileaks meets Surveillance Valley: An interview with Julian Assange

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Wikileaks meets Surveillance Valley: An interview with Julian Assange

“The problem,” says Julian Assange, is that “a lot of groups that would normally criticize Google, the nonprofits that are involved in the tech sector, are funded directly or indirectly by Google. Or by USAID. Or by Freedom House. Google and its extended network have significant patronage in the very groups that would normally be criticizing it.”

All EFF’d Up: Silicon Valley’s astroturf privacy shakedown

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

All EFF’d Up: Silicon Valley’s astroturf privacy shakedown

But that’s what EFF is all about: it’s a Silicon Valley corporate front group, no different than the rest. The only thing unique about it is how successful it’s been in positioning itself as a defender of the people—so successful, in fact, that even the people who work for it believe it. The fact that EFF has been able to pull it off of for so long shows the kind of immense power that Silicon Valley wields over our political culture. When we think about technology and the Internet, there’s no left or right. There’s just Google and Facebook.