Spookwatch.

  Following my recent post on ways to avoid snooping by the NSA and GCHQ another piece of advice, avoid https, although Wikipedia propose to use it in the future. No such encryption will defeat the methods employed by the NSA as a recent presentation of its X-Keyscore programme illustrated; more information on this programme can be found here.  Incidentally a small plea for Wiki here. It relies solely on public subscription to maintain perhaps the widest and most informed source of information ever available to mankind. As a constant user of its information I do make an annual contribution to the Wikimedia Foundation, more information about which can be found here.

 One other tip, in passing,  is to use a public library for obtaing the information that you require, although it goes without saying that the use of passwords on a public computer could compromise the security of your bank account and e-mail details etc. Although Wiki have the best intentions the use of https does little to inhibit the Spooks and as Edward Snowden has revealed not only do organisations such as Google and Apple provide information to these snooping agencies but every computer ever manufacturer, in the west, from the smallest hand held telephone to the biggest Kray and IBM computers has a back door which these agencies use and even the very keystrokes that you type are being forwarded to their huge collection resources.
 Counterpunch, as usual, has been on the ball in recent days and this serious, yet humorous article on a
business proposition to the NSA on fishing makes a good read, as does John Pilger's excellent article on
Whistleblowers. These organisations, at their best, do a valuable service in protecting us from attack, but, as usual it is an eye for an eye in this nasty world of ours and the ability of the governments of Britain and the USA to commit evil is unparalleled by any threat  that any foreign state or clandestine organisation presents to us. And it is their ability to go beyond their remit to go after the terrorist (a name once given by Margaret Thatcher to Nelson Mandela) and reach into our homes and spy on the diplomatic and economic activities of UN members such as Brazil and countless other peaceful countries that is abhorrent. However their goose has been cooked and they have been found out and even though Obama wants to take his ball home and not play with the Russians anymore, their world will never be the same again. They are accountable, not to government, but to us and the vast majority of the people appear not to like what they are doing.
 Whilst on the question of public standards and accountability I was staggered, whilst working at GCHQ to discover that retiring members of the Directorate were taking jobs with companies like Racal, who had won contracts worth millions of pounds at GCHQ after serving their compulsory, but short, period of abstinence from the trough, as required by the Civil Service regulations. These, although slightly amended, are still in existence today as my old sparring partner Brian Tovey found himself a nice little job as a consultant advising firms such as Plessey. I have had the honour of working with senior Civil Servants who represent all that is good about public office but surely this practice should be stopped. It is surely indefensible that such questionable practices should be allowed to happen and as a serving Civil Servant I was  not even allowed to accept a diary or a calendar from a company that I had dealt with and surely what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the greedy ganders. They also collect their knighthoods, an honour that is also been handed out to crooks and paedophiles and, as such, is rightly much discredited.