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by thaumasiotes 1702 days ago
PRISM would seem to support that idea.
2 comments

No it would not. It would only suggest that once the data existed there was an interest on the part of certain government agencies to gain access to the data. The idea that these companies are 'fronts' for these agencies is moronic to the point of being self-parody.
Front suggests secret ownership/control. More likely is that they are simply compelled by the state to spy, willingly or not.
How is "the state secretly compels them to do things" different from "they are secretly controlled by the state"?
As another commenter suggested: it's absurd beyond parody and a flagrant abuse of language to conflate being a "front" with being compelled by a third party (especially one with legal authority) to do some action(s). Being a "front" suggests an entire business model created by and built around propping up that third party such that the two are indistinguishable actors on everything but the surface level.
> Being a "front" suggests an entire business model created by and built around propping up that third party such that the two are indistinguishable actors on everything but the surface level.

No. One party being a front for another party suggests that the two are indistinguishable actors on everything but the surface level, or more accurately that any action taken by the first party might be better viewed as being "really" taken by the second party, that any information given to the first party is also being given to the second party, etc. It does not suggest that fronting for the second party is the only thing the first party does, or that the first party was created to serve the purposes of the second party.

Taking an example out of the dictionary, it would be unusual to claim that a massage parlor serving as a front for prostitution is obviously, by its nature as a "front", unwilling to provide massages.

so when google releases its 13th chat app, that’s really the CIA doing it? Netflix’s chaos monkey program is ackthuallee an intelligence scam to attack your distributed systems from within?
How did you go from

> It does not suggest that fronting for the second party is the only thing the first party does

to

> Netflix’s chaos monkey program is ackthuallee an intelligence scam to attack your distributed systems from within?

You're trying to interpret me as saying literally the opposite of the plain text of my comment. Work on your reading comprehension.

But yes, when Google releases its 13th chat app, there are good reasons to view that as being a CIA chat app with Google branding.

I am secretly controlled by the state because they force me to pay taxes. We are all IRS assets in their quest to build a global American tax-base imperial seat of power.