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Companies learning to flip elections perfected their tactics in smaller or emerging countries, such as Latvia, Trinidad, or Nigeria, before turning to markets involving elections in developed nations. Paul Mason suggests that while at the moment there is a lot of angst from people being reminded of how their harvested data is used, it is really the union of private espionage, cracking, and "black ops" capabilities that should be setting off alarms.
Disturbingly, both CA and SCL have high-level contracts with governments, giving them access to secret intelligence both in the US and the UK. SCL is on List X, which allows it to hold British secret intelligence at its facilities.
It now appears that techniques they used in Ukraine and Eastern Europe to counteract Russian influence, and against Islamist terrorism in the Middle East, were then used to influence elections in the heart of Western democracy itself.
Let's be clear about what we're facing. A mixture of free market dogmatism plus constraints imposed by the rule of law has led, over the past decades, to the creation of an alternative, private, secret state.
When it was only focused on the enemies and rivals of the West, or hapless politicians in the global south, nobody minded. Now it is being used as a weapon to tear apart democracy in Britain and the US we care — and rightly so.
From New Statesman: We need to destroy the election-rigging industry before it destroys us
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @02:29PM (1 child)
A free market does not entail the ability to buy politicians to establish different rules for your competitions and ensure a monopoly. That is the opposite of a free market.
Play your semantic games if you want, but a "free market" extends to everyone, not just billionaires. If America were a free market, I would be able to start a barber shop without restrictive licensing. Dental assistants would be able to clean teeth without working under a dentist. Cable companies would be able to serve new areas without jumping through hoops to gain access to the infrastructure AT&T bought exclusive rights to ten years ago.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday March 28 2018, @02:50PM
Ah, the limited free market where you are free to do stuff but others aren't free. Why should the freedom of the other barbers be limited? Why should the freedom of dentists be limited and why should the freedoms of the cable companies be limited?
The thing is freedom goes both ways, your free to open a barbershop and the other barbers are free to band together and stop you. Perhaps you're arguing for regulations?