A transcript for this broadcast is not available.
The following rush transcript probably contains errors and/or omissions…
The following transcript is incomplete.
The NSA: Playing World-of-Warcraft on TaxPayer Dollars! — I’m Rex Latchford here with another DayPage.
First, You’ve probably heard that Nelson Mandela Died Thursday. There are too many words being expressed. We’ll just say that it’s a loss. Rest in Peace. (fade to black, ~10 seconds)
Now to our Top Story. You heard it right. Hords of… not Orcs, but NSA analysts, spending countless hours playing World of Warcraft in an attempt to find terrorists among the Elves and Goblins. But wait — it gets better… not only is the NSA playing World of Warcraft to spy on players, SO MANY OTHER Federal Agencies are doing the same… that a new Federal organization had to be created for what the NSA called “de-confliction” — to prevent conflicts between different Federal Agencies conducting surveillance on the Massive Multiplayer Game that is played by 10’s of millions of Americans. One can easily imagine entire Battlegrounds, and even Realms, entirely populated by Federal Agents — who could be doing something more useful — instead playing a Video Game on the public’s dime.
This new information comes from the NSA’s own documents, dripping with enthusiam about the “potential” for spying on Americans by analyzing buddy-lists and interaction within the game, and correlating the information with information collected outside the game. The NSA also apparently focused on Second Life, and possibly other popular online games as well. The documents were released by The Guardian as part of the trove of NSA documents disclosed by Edward Snowden, of which less than 1% have been reported on, according to The Guardian.
Because the online games promote user interaction through multiple mechanisms including voice, text, chat, and virtual character interaction, untold number of agents have been required to occupy the many virtual realms of these games to ensure that all interactions can be surveiled.
No word on how many millions of dollars have been spent, or the ratio of agents split across the Alliance and Horde factions.
In still more news of the NSA’s illegal bulk collection of intelligence, Internet companies such as Apple, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Twitter, and AOL have co-signed a letter to President Obama saying “the balance in America has tipped too far in favor of the state, and away from the individual” in the matter of spying on citizens. Will the government deny not only the people, but large corporations (recently deemed people by the Citizens United Supreme Court Decision) the right to petition the Government for redress of grievances?
The corporations have created a new website called “reformgovernmentsurveillance.com” is now live to express the concerns of the Tech Giants. I highly recommend you visit the site as soon as you can.
At least 11 people have died in a massive winter storm across the Southwest and Southeast. Thousands of people in Texas and Arkansas were left without power as a cold front moved across the country. Stay tuned to Radio InfoWeb for more on the deep chill.
New figures show the official U.S. unemployment rate has hit a five-year low of 7 percent. Employers added 203,000 jobs in November, higher than expected. An extension of jobless benefits would come as part of a new budget bill, which faces a deadline of mid-January.
As the World Trade Organization meets in Indonesia, negotiators and lobbyists from the United States and 11 other countries are also in Singapore for secretive talks on the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP would establish a free trade zone stretching from Vietnam to Chile to Japan, encompassing nearly 40 percent of the global economy. The Huffington Post reports the United States has received almost no support for a series of proposals that would grant “radical new powers to corporations.” Internal memos from an unnamed government involved in the talks show the Obama administration has tried to push through guarantees for corporations to sue governments for lost profits in a private court. The administration has also called for new intellectual property regulations that would give pharmaceutical giants long-term monopolies over medications, freezing out cheaper generic alternatives. Another U.S. proposal facing resistance would limit governments from negotiating lower prices with pharmaceutical companies. On bank regulation, the United States has faced opposition for seeking restrict “banking controls,” a series of measures that can help a government respond to financial crises. Activists observing the talks, meanwhile, say the United States has been trying to push through an agreement by January 1, hosting secretive invite-only sessions with key delegates.
Criticizing the WTO deal, the World Development Movement called it “an agreement for transnational corporations, not the world’s poor.”
(the conclusion of the program is not transcribed)
A transcript of this DayPage is not immediately available, but will be posted at a later time.
Written and produced by Rex Latchford