Obama's obsession with NSA spying costing US corporations contracts, profits, and jobs

Are we watching the sunset of the U.S. technology industry ?

RELATED Citing Security Concerns Amid U.S. Spying Disclosures, German Government Ends Verizon Contract (The Wall Street Journal)

FOLLOWING REPORTS THAT the U.S. technology giant and National Security Agency partner Verizon was providing Internet services to the German Parliament, the German public exploded in outrage at the possibly of having their government's national security and privacy rights further violated by the U.S. government and by its technology partners. After NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed the corrupt and unconstitutional spying programs of the United States, including by U.S. technology partners such as Verizon, the German government was forced to terminate its technology contract with Verizon. It's not yet known the size of the financial loss to Verizon, or how many jobs will be lost as a result of the canceled German government technology contract. Many U.S. technology firms are having to privately grapple with the economic and political backlash to the on-going cooperation between U.S. technology firms and the U.S. spy agency. "Microsoft Corp. General Counsel Brad Smith said last week the business troubles stemming from the Snowden leaks were "getting worse, not better." Cisco Systems Inc. Chief Executive John Chambers has said the disclosures have hurt sales in China. AT&T Inc. executives have said some of their international customers were being urged by overseas competitors to use non-American service providers." -- WSJ Last winter, Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg called President Barack Obama to complain about the NSA spying programs. Mr. Zuckerberg's leaked his displeasure to the public as a growing movement of activists are exposing Facebook for its corrupt ''like'' advertising programs and for the creepy cyberstalking policies it carries out against its members, in addition to Facebook's role in being a core source for NSA surveillance activities. Although the obstacles facing Facebook may be unique to its own troubled business premise, the reality is that many U.S. technology giants, including social media companies, are facing real political and economic blowback as a result of questions being raised by each of foreign governments and foreign businesses about the trustworthiness of U.S.-based sources for NSA spying and hacking, such as Verizon and Facebook. Not only are the NSA spying programs unconstitutional and are going to lead to serious costs to the U.S. legal system, as civil rights and civil liberties activists clog the system with their noble efforts to rightly restore basic Constitutional principles to the wayward American spying framework, but now the NSA spying programs are going to have a financial cost to the economy, too. And all, on President Obama's watch.

Has Facebook exceeded peak goodwill ?

"We don't care. We don't have to. We're Facebook."

• RELATED : A Breakup Letter to Facebook from Eat24 (Eat24)
• RELATED : Has Facebook gotten so successful that it doesn’t care what other people think about it ? (The New York Times)

Facebook has come under fire in a new posting on The New York Times. In a panic to shore up public confidence following its never-ending changes to news feeds, its perpetual weakening of privacy controls for its users, questions over the way Facebook distributes traffic to page "likes," and its alleged close association with the National Security Administration, Facebook has been on a buying spree -- first engulfing Whatsapp and now Oculus VR -- desperately trying to acquire new individual users to make up for the users scrambling to abandon the once mighty social media network.

But in Facebook's strategy to buy individual users, it has neglected the legion of small businesses that had turned to Facebook as part of their online marketing strategy. Case in point : Eat24.

According to The New York Times, small and growing businesses like Eat24 blame Facebook for upending the way it allows businesses to interact with individual users. "Facebook has changed its algorithms over the last couple of years to highlight more posts by individuals and bury posts from brands — unless, of course, a brand wants to pay for ads to promote its posts."

With Facebook's goodwill deteriorating with individual users and businesses that formerly enjoyed their Facebook experience, all this reminds us of comedian Lily Tomlin's hilarious satirical skits of a fictional telephone operator, Ernestine, who became famous for her trademark line : "We don't care; we don't have to. We're the phone company."

Let's see how long before the next brilliant college student invents a new social media platform that will create a wild Internet sensation amongst college students, leaving Facebook to join the land line telephone company and MySpace as obsolete telecommunication business models.

Hilarious Parody of Petraeus Scandal

Buy #Cypherpunks By Julian Assange directly from : O/R Books

FRONTLINE:WIKISECRETS BY FRONTLINE (DVD) (Google Affiliate Ad)

U.S. Military Uses Sock Puppet Accounts To Spy On You Online

''Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media''

A sock puppet company called Ntrepid has been awarded a contract initially worth $2.76 million by the United States Central Command create fake online accounts -- what has been called a "virtual army" of profiles -- to "create the impression of consensus opinion in online comment threads, or manipulate social media to the point where valuable stories are suppressed."

The U.S. Military may be engaged in illegal activity, if it uses its sock puppet operations to target American citizens, according to The Guardian newspaper.

Persona management by the US military would face legal challenges if it were turned against citizens of the US, where a number of people engaged in sock puppetry have faced prosecution.

Last year a New York lawyer who impersonated a scholar was sentenced to jail after being convicted of "criminal impersonation" and identity theft.

According to The Guardian, "Once developed, the software could allow US service personnel, working around the clock in one location, to respond to emerging online conversations with any number of co-ordinated Facebook messages, blogposts, tweets, retweets, chatroom posts and other interventions. Details of the contract suggest this location would be MacDill air force base near Tampa, Florida, home of US Special Operations Command."

Nobody knows if Ntrepid will be awarded supplemental contracts that will jack-up the amount of money paid to Ntrepid after the fact from secret sock puppet accounts of the U.S. government.