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I wouldn't call Riker a scientist, or would, he invented the theory of the misleading charlatan

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Excellante! It highlights my chicanery comment on Mr. Khan's previous piece. It is more substantive, however. Back in the day, this sort of thing wasn't an issue. People talked to each other face to face either in the town square, or the local coffee house, or even in people's houses. You could get into print as well. Newspapers no longer required a royal permit to publish and there was a sufficient number of them that if you couldn't get your rant in one, it was an odds on favorite that you could find one that would publish you. Later even the telephone was equal opportunity (and, while you could still be tapped, that required making a physical contact with your phone wires and half the time you needed the phone company's cooperation to do it. Now all you need is a receiver that you can point at the cell phone tower and you're in business (personally, I think all cell phone signals should be encrypted)); nobody could stop your conversation. The original laws about the airwaves were written to prevent people from controlling the sources of information. These laws went beyond the airwaves and included print media. There were limits on print media and radio and TV ownership. There was even the fairness doctrine which was in place to prevent what the news has become - simply an echo chamber for one point of view or another.

You can mostly thank your Republican buddies for this, they got many of these changes made for the benefit of their patrons.

With the advent of the internet, we have a whole new set of issues that are largely driven by money. So, if facebook is pulling these stunts or banning sitting prezzies and CEOs, why can't we simply move to another platform and go forward? Great software isn't an impediment, facebook has proven you don't need great software. The impediment is the infrastructure. Servers cost money. Big internet pipes cost money. And even if you get people to sign up to use your system, you face a huge problem. Somebody on your facebook II won't be able to talk to their friend who is still on facebook I. This was not a problem in the telephone era. You could be on Ma Bell's system and still talk to anyone on anyone else's phone system. These are the sorts of things that the government needs to address, not weather or not a woman can get an abortion which as far as I'm concerned is a private matter.

Unfortunately, the US is now an authoritarian police state and the farthest thing from the US government's mind is ensuring the freedom of its citizens.

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BRAVO !!!

That was great and very informative. There are also other bipartisan taboo themes though.

Much reported, including Ed Snowden "Topic of this year – Pegasus, etc.", is disclosure of continuous over time surveillance ability of all smart-phones of all conversations and pin-point location-accuracy even when phone is turned off.

Therefore, certainly many governments (certainly of Israel and the US) know EXACTLY and for ALL Epstein's associates and "guests" -- who, when, where, how long, and why they were with pedophile Epstein !! Yet we still don't know, after all this time, for example, even what Epstein's multiple passports show.

As courageous Eric Weinstein stated -- Epstein was "a construct" - by one or more intelligence services. And – the buck for these spywares for authoritarian governments stops -- at Israel apartheid government.

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