[Peace-discuss] Notes

[J.B. Nicholson]

Notes for News from Neptune & AWARE on the Air to spur discussion. Have a 
good show guys.



https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/bbc-sky-news-have-hidden-their-interviews-with-un-expert-on-the-torture-of-assange-4cb155aaf313 
-- Caitlin Johnstone reveals that "BBC, Sky News Have Hidden Their 
Interviews With UN Expert On The Torture Of Assange"

> UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer has said that on the 31st 
> of May he gave video interviews with both Sky News and the BBC on his 
> findings that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is the victim of 
> psychological torture. As of this writing, footage of those interviews 
> is nowhere to be found.
> 
> In response to a smear by virulent empire propagandist Idrees Ahmad 
> about his conducting an interview with RT, Melzer tweeted that he has 
> given interviews to both Sky News and BBC World, but that they seem not 
> to have been aired.
> 
> “So the UN rapporteur actually appeared on the Kremlin’s premier 
> propaganda network — yes, the propaganda network of the state that 
> shoots journalists in the face — to discuss Julian Assange’s
> ‘torture’,” tweeted Ahmad, pretending to be under the illusion that UN
> experts are meant to remain exclusively loyal to a specific group of
> nations.
> 
> “For the record: On 31 May, I have also given similar exclusive TV 
> interviews to both Sky News and BBC World on Julian Assange, but it 
> seems they decided not to broadcast them,” Melzer responded.
Related:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0L_kEo2LTU -- Nils Melzer's RT interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDGiXA_rvYM -- Nils Melzer's Ruptly interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErW1taJEPrs -- Nils Melzer's Democracy Now 
(DN) interview
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/5/31/seg_1_julian_assange_please_update 
-- DN interview transcript





Venezuela: The coup continues -- Deutsche Bank seizes (steals?) Venezuelan 
gold allegedly as collateral for defaulting on a loan.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-04/venezuela-is-said-to-default-on-gold-swap-with-deutsche-bank
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4QV14g6ePU -- RT's report

Bloomberg cites anonymous sources ("two people with direct knowledge of the 
matter") and wrote:

> Venezuela has defaulted on a gold swap agreement valued at $750 million 
> with Deutsche Bank AG, prompting the lender to take control of the 
> precious metal used as collateral and close out the contract
[...]

> As part of a financing agreement signed in 2016, Venezuela received a 
> cash loan from Deutsche Bank and put up 20 tons of gold as collateral. 
> The agreement, which was set to expire in 2021, was settled early due
> to missed interest payments, said the people, who asked not to be named 
> speaking about a private matter.
> 
> In the meantime, opposition leader Juan Guaido’s parallel government
> has asked the bank to deposit $120 million into an account outside
> President Nicolas Maduro’s reach, which represents the difference in
> price from when the gold was acquired to current levels. As part of
> efforts to unseat Maduro, the U.S. and more than 50 countries have
> recognized Guaido as the legitimate leader of Venezuela even though he
> still doesn’t control key institutions at home, including the central
> bank.
> 
> “We’re in touch with Deutsche Bank to negotiate the terms under which 
> the difference owed to the central bank will be paid to the legitimate 
> government of Venezuela," said Jose Ignacio Hernandez, Guaido’s 
> U.S.-based attorney general. “Deutsche Bank can’t risk negotiating with 
> the central bank’s illegitimate authorities," particularly after it was 
> sanctioned by the U.S. government, Hernandez said.
Could this be part of American action to force Maduro out, let Guaidó in 
and make Guaidó seem more legitimate?






Population: The world population is changing: For the first time there are 
more people over 64 than children younger than 5

https://ourworldindata.org/population-aged-65-outnumber-children --

> In 2018 the number of people older than 64 years old surpassed the 
> number of children under 5 years old. This was the first time in
> history this was the case.






https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle-helsinkis-radical-solution-to-homelessness 
-- Finland reduces homelessness by unconditionally (meaning housing comes 
first, not first solving other problems that may have led to homelessness) 
turning the homeless into tenants with medical support and job training via 
a halfway house (called Rukkila located in Malminkartano, Helsinki, 
Finland). The program is called "Housing First" and the effect is a huge 
savings.

> Finland is the only EU country where homelessness is falling. Its 
> secret? Giving people homes as soon as they need them – unconditionally

[...]

> It is important that they are tenants: each has a contract, pays rent 
> and (if they need to) applies for housing benefit. That, after all, is 
> all part of having a home – and part of a housing policy that has now 
> made Finland the only EU country where homelessness is falling.
> 
> When the policy was being devised just over a decade ago, the four 
> people who came up with what is now widely known as the Housing First 
> principle – a social scientist, a doctor, a politician and a bishop – 
> called their report Nimi Ovessa ("Your Name on the Door").
[...]

> As in many countries, homelessness in Finland had long been tackled 
> using a staircase model: you were supposed to move through different 
> stages of temporary accommodation as you got your life back on track, 
> with an apartment as the ultimate reward.
> 
> “We decided to make the housing unconditional,” says Kaakinen. “To say, 
> look, you don’t need to solve your problems before you get a home. 
> Instead, a home should be the secure foundation that makes it easier to 
> solve your problems.”
> 
> With state, municipal and NGO backing, flats were bought, new blocks 
> built and old shelters converted into permanent, comfortable homes – 
> among them the Rukkila homeless hostel in the Helsinki suburb of 
> Malminkartano where Ainesmaa now lives.
> 
> Housing First’s early goal was to create 2,500 new homes. It has
> created 3,500. Since its launch in 2008, the number of long-term
> homeless people in Finland has fallen by more than 35%. Rough sleeping
> has been all but eradicated in Helsinki, where only one 50-bed night
> shelter remains, and where winter temperatures can plunge to -20C.
> 
> The city’s deputy mayor Sanna Vesikansa says that in her childhood, 
> “hundreds in the whole country slept in the parks and forests. We
> hardly have that any more. Street sleeping is very rare now.”
> 
> In England, meanwhile, government figures show the number of rough 
> sleepers – a small fraction of the total homeless population – climbed 
> from 1,768 in 2010 to 4,677 last year (and since the official count is 
> based on a single evening, charities say the real figure is far 
> higher).
> 
> But Housing First is not just about housing. “Services have been 
> crucial,” says Helsinki’s mayor, Jan Vapaavuori, who was housing 
> minister when the original scheme was launched. “Many long-term
> homeless people have addictions, mental health issues, medical
> conditions that need ongoing care. The support has to be there.”
> 
> At Rukkila, seven staff support 21 tenants. Assistant manager Saara 
> Haapa says the work ranges from practical help navigating bureaucracy 
> and getting education, training and work placements to activities 
> including games, visits and learning – or re-learning – basic life 
> skills such as cleaning and cooking.
jbn: To make this work you need homes:

> But if Housing First is working in Helsinki, where half the country’s 
> homeless people live, it is also because it is part of a much broader 
> housing policy. More pilot schemes serve little real purpose, says 
> Kaakinen: “We know what works. You can have all sorts of projects, but 
> if you don’t have the actual homes … A sufficient supply of social 
> housing is just crucial.”

jbn: The savings and the interest in the program goes beyond Finland:

> Housing First costs money, of course: Finland has spent €250m creating 
> new homes and hiring 300 extra support workers. But a recent study 
> showed the savings in emergency healthcare, social services and the 
> justice system totalled as much as €15,000 a year for every homeless 
> person in properly supported housing.
> 
> Interest in the policy beyond the country’s borders has been 
> exceptional, from France to Australia, says Vesikansa. The British 
> government is funding pilot schemes in Merseyside, the West Midlands
> and Greater Manchester, whose Labour mayor, Andy Burnham, is due in
> Helsinki in July to see the policy in action.
> 
> But if Housing First is working in Helsinki, where half the country’s 
> homeless people live, it is also because it is part of a much broader 
> housing policy. More pilot schemes serve little real purpose, says 
> Kaakinen: “We know what works. You can have all sorts of projects, but 
> if you don’t have the actual homes … A sufficient supply of social 
> housing is just crucial.”

jbn: It seems to me that in the US a national jobs program to build the 
homes, roads, network infrastructure, electrical cabling, lay the potable 
water piping, and then fill the homes with homeless people would be 
something we could afford by cutting half of the military budget and 
training & paying people living wages to do good work the workers would be 
able to crow about when they went home.







War: US weapons manufacturers sell to Taiwan, continue to sell to Saudi Arabia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtzW6miJ06w -- US is arming Taiwan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V6ZxzXHF9U -- Yemen crisis is only 
possible with US/UK arming Saudi Arabia







War training: US military doesn't like wind turbines claiming the turbines 
somehow interfere with "flying low to the ground", but is the military 
covering for frackers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz1v5wpcSjs -- RT commentary

https://www.wired.com/story/the-military-is-locked-in-a-power-struggle-with-wind-farms/ 
-- 

> [Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Goana claims] there’s been a new 
> obstacle: wind turbines that now generate a third of Oklahoma’s 
> electricity and 17 percent of the power in Texas.
> 
> "We need the space above the ground unimpeded so we can fly low to the 
> ground," says Goana, commander of the 80th Training Wing at Sheppard
> Air Force Base. "Sort of like driver’s ed."
> 
> A year ago, military leaders at Sheppard joined state officials to beat 
> back a proposed wind farm in nearby Oklahoma. But base officials now 
> worry about more proposed wind farms that keep cropping up. They say 
> they have been forced to close three of 12 low-flying training routes
> in the past decade because of “wind farm encroachment.”
> 
> “One or two is OK, we will move over,” Goana says about shifting 
> Sheppard's training routes, which also have to avoid cell towers and 
> radio masts. “But now it’s almost completely clogged.”
> 
> Similar disputes between some military officials and wind farm 
> developers are underway in North Carolina, Tennessee, and upstate New 
> York. In California, the Navy wants to declare the Pacific Ocean from 
> Big Sur to the Mexican border off limits to proposed offshore wind 
> farms, because they would conflict with "the requirements of Navy and 
> Marine Corps missions conducted in the air, on the surface, and below 
> the surface of these waters."
[...]

> [S]tate officials who like the idea [of wind power-driven electricity] 
> are pushing back against legislators allied with the fossil fuel 
> industry. The battles over these wind farms aren't making headlines,
> but they are having an impact across the country. Every fight slows the 
> transition to a renewable-powered world.
> 
> Advocates say that wind is a win-win: Property leases and wind farm
> jobs help struggling rural economies with a new source of revenue,
> while helping wean utilities off fossil fuels. But if the fight over
> military flight paths continues, wind companies will seek greener
> pastures elsewhere, and that won't help residents of eastern North
> Carolina, says Katharine Kollins, the Raleigh-based president of the
> Southeastern Wind Coalition, a nonprofit industry group covering 11
> states.
> 
> "When you have legislators that are so bent on removing those options, 
> wind energy companies that are investing millions of dollars in these 
> sites are starting to pull back," Kollins said.
> 
> This debate isn’t new. Congress asked the Pentagon to deal with the 
> problem back in 2011, and the Pentagon set up a Siting Clearinghouse to 
> resolve these conflicts by reviewing technical and engineering studies 
> and meeting with both wind developers and military base leaders. For 
> offshore areas, the Pentagon also confers with the Department of 
> Interior’s Bureau of Offshore Energy Management. So California may
> still get its offshore wind installations.
> 
> Last year, the Clearinghouse reviewed 795 wind farm proposals, a jump
> of nearly 30 percent in the past five years, according to Defense 
> Department spokesperson Elissa Smith. The Pentagon hasn't rejected any 
> proposals, but it has recommended developers to build fewer turbines, 
> lower them, or move them somewhere else, Smith says.






Elizabeth Warren: another warmonger for the Democratic Party

https://www.blackagendareport.com/elizabeth-warren-wants-green-bombs-not-green-new-deal 
-- Danny Haiphong: "Elizabeth Warren Wants Green Bombs, not a Green New Deal"

> Warren prides herself in fighting for a kinder capitalism but has no 
> problem with a nasty, murderous imperialism.
> 
> The Green New Deal has found little support among establishment 
> Democratic Party members of Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called 
> the comprehensive policy a “list of aspirations” that could never be 
> considered all at once. Senate Democrats mostly abstained from the 57-0 
> Senate vote against the Green New Deal in March, calling the gesture a 
> Republican “stunt.” Yet this “stunt” revealed that the corporate 
> Democratic Party is not very interested in the Green New Deal even 
> though it is supported by over eighty percent of voters in both 
> political parties. In this stage of capitalism, the Democrat side of
> the two-party duopoly is just as enthusiastic a patron in the endless
> regime of austerity as its Republican counterpart.
> 
> Elizabeth Warren has been receiving more attention from the Democratic 
> Party establishment of late. Warren has attempted to make up for her 
> woeful confrontation with Trump around her proclaimed indigenous 
> identity by releasing a flurry of policy proposals on issues such as 
> maternal mortality and student loan forgiveness. While Elizabeth Warren 
> has voiced “strong support” for the Green New Deal, she recently
> tweeted a strange proposal that deviates from its principles. In
> mid-May, Warren announced that she would be introducing the Defense
> Climate Resiliency and Readiness Act to help the military become more
> “energy efficient.” As she stated on Twitter, “Climate change is real,
> it’s worsening by the day, and it’s undermining our military readiness.
> More and more, accomplishing the mission depends on our ability to
> continue operations in the face of floods, drought, wildfires,
> desertification, and extreme cold.”
> 
> Elizabeth Warren believes that strengthening the “effectiveness” of the 
> U.S. military is consistent with the Green New Deal. Her bill doesn’t 
> demand that the U.S. military be reduced in size or scale.Nor does it 
> mention that the U.S. military is the world’s largest polluter and user 
> of oil and fossil fuels. Instead of turning the Green New Deal into 
> concrete policy, Warren has placed her attention on renovating the one 
> thousand U.S. military bases that exist domestically and abroad. The 
> so-called “policy wonk” of the 2020 elections appears to be more 
> concerned with creating “green” bombs than a “green economy.”
> 
> The U.S. drops a bomb on another nation every twelve minutes. It is no 
> wonder that U.S. military, which serves as the armed body of the state 
> responsible for protecting the interests of Wall Street, fossil fuel 
> corporations, military contractors, and monopolies of all kinds, is 
> treated as a trophy by all sections of the U.S. political class. The 
> U.S. military embodies American exceptionalism claiming to spread 
> democracy and freedom to lands near and far. Holidays such as Memorial 
> Day and Veterans Day are designed to remind Americans of all races and 
> classes that the U.S. is exceptional because of its large military 
> footprint. Instead of seeing this footprint as bombs, sanctions, or 
> deadly raids, Democrat and Republican politicians alike believe that
> the U.S. military permanently signifies American greatness.



War/Press freedom: Australia is reacting to Assange with raids of an 
editor's home and the Australian Broadcast Corporation offices for covering 
Afghan war crime stories published over a year ago in 2017 which exposed 
Australian Special Forces operations which are likely war crimes based on 
secret defense documents. Annika Smethurt's home was raided in connection 
to a 2018 report she wrote regarding a "secret push for sweeping new home 
security powers" which involved spying on Australian citizens. This report 
was based on secret conversations between ministry.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jun/06/police-raids-raise-fears-of-australian-media-crackdown-abc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfzQgETezAQ -- RT's report including an 
interview with Binoy Kampmark (see 
https://www.counterpunch.org/author/jete6/ for Kampmark's articles on 
Counterpunch.org) in which he describes that the revelations are seen as 
offences but not the crimes the revelations disclose.

Binoy Kampmark said:

> The particular release of the files has been something of a 
> disillusioning thing for those in the Australian military: in a sense 
> the revelation of this has been also deemed the greatest offence rather 
> than seeing the SAS [Special Air Service Regiment, a special forces
> unit of the Australian Army] is committing crimes, the issue has been
> more those revealing that those crimes are committed.
WikiLeaks' twitter post -- 
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1136218914898284545

> The criminalization and crack down on national security journalism is 
> spreading like a virus. The #Assange precedent is already having
> effect. Journalists must unite and remember that courage is also
> contagious.
The Guardian (above URL):

> Tuesday’s raid in Canberra, which came without any warning, was 
> connected to a scoop revealing a plan by one of Australia’s
> surveillance agencies, the Australian Signals Directorate, to broaden
> its powers to spy on citizens without their knowledge. It was published
> in April 2018, and referred immediately for police investigation.
> 
> The raid on [political editor of Australia’s Sunday Telegraph
> newspaper, Annika] Smethurst’s home, following hot on the heels of a
> federal election, was disconcerting enough for the Australian media, but
> a second raid followed on Wednesday in Sydney at Australia’s national 
> public broadcaster, the ABC. This one related to an investigation about 
> alleged unlawful killings in Afghanistan by Australian special forces, 
> broadcast in July 2017. The story was referred for police investigation 
> the day after broadcast.
> 
> The ABC – unlike Smethurst and the Sunday Telegraph’s owner, News Corp
> – was aware the search was coming. John Lyons, the head of
> investigations at the national broadcaster, decided to remain in the
> room while police worked and live tweet Wednesday’s operation. The scope
> of the warrant “staggered” the veteran journalist. He told his followers
> the warrant allowed the police to “add, copy, delete or alter” material
> in the ABC’s computers.> “This would not be allowed to happen in the
> United States under their constitution,” Lyons said while the raid was
> in progress. “My question is why is this allowed to happen in Australia
> in 2019.”
> 
> The answer to that question is multi-dimensional. Australia has a
> global reputation for robust plain-speaking, both in the broader culture
> and in its politics, but it does not have a bill of rights enshrining 
> protections for free speech and a free press. There is no explicit 
> constitutional protection for expression. The high court has determined 
> that an implied freedom of political communication exists.
> 
> As well as a lack of basic systemic protections, Australia has an 
> onerous defamation regime that media companies have heavily criticised. 
> There are also restrictions on what can be reported from court 
> proceedings.
> 
> Overlaid on all that is the post-September 11 framework of national 
> security laws. The Australian journalist Peter Greste, who was 
> imprisoned by Egyptian authorities while reporting for al-Jazeera 
> English, and is a founding director of the Alliance for Journalists’ 
> Freedom, points to “a slew of national security laws” passed by the 
> Australian parliament in recent years “that in some way limit and even 
> criminalise the legitimate work of journalists”.



Israel: Lobbying to prevent a two-state solution

https://amp.axios.com/two-state-solution-resolution-congress-israel-32aeee05-8461-44a5-ae6f-9f53c68880ab.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrA4zobgAl0 -- Israeli officials are 
currently lobbying the US Congress against a 2-state solution. Both RT and 
Axios cite unnamed sources which allegedly say that Israel wants the bill 
to not go up for a vote or, failing that, remove the words "two-state 
solution" from the bill.





Surveillance: A few articles have come out indicating that companies are 
selling people the means of allowing the company to use the device as part 
of a well-organized surveillance network.

https://www.cnet.com/features/amazons-helping-police-build-a-surveillance-network-with-ring-doorbells/ 
-- Amazon's new doorbell product with a surveillance camera and network 
connectivity (called "Ring") works by relaying data to Amazon, then letting 
the customer connect to Amazon to watch footage from their Ring camera. 
This also allows Amazon to correlate where the product is and put together 
a real-time updated image map of what's going on in the field of view of 
all Ring cameras -- one Ring to bind them all made real.

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2019/06/05/how-does-apple-privately-find-your-offline-devices/ 
-- Matthew Green's blog article about how Apple's "Find My" feature 
actually works.

Green wrote:

> The idea of the new system is to turn Apple’s existing network of 
> iPhones into a massive crowdsourced location tracking system. Every 
> active iPhone will continuously monitor for BLE beacon messages that 
> might be coming from a lost device. When it picks up one of these 
> signals, the participating phone tags the data with its own current GPS 
> location; then it sends the whole package up to Apple’s servers.
jbn: This means Apple is using devices they sold to create a whole new line 
of revenue and control for themselves -- if you want to locate a lost 
device using this the information Apple collects, you have to go through 
them to get that info. You can't have your own device report its location 
to you over the Internet, and you can't set up an alternative network to 
Apple's so other Apple device owners can choose to participate in your 
location network and not Apple's.

Location devices are also the roots of privacy problems. This is another 
reason why you can't trust proprietary software -- you aren't given any 
control over whether your device emits the signal that allows "Find My" to 
work. So you don't get to go 'off-grid' (not be tracked) as it were. The 
only real solution to avoiding the privacy problems is to not submit data 
to organizations (Apple, Amazon, etc.) in the first place. Once they have 
the data they get to choose what to do with that data (including archiving 
it and creating profiles on users' movements).

Now perhaps it's more clear why cell phones are more honestly called 
trackers that happen to also make phone calls, and so are proprietary 
computers including iPads.

Green is far to conciliatory to Apple on his blog but he does get into what 
could go wrong:

> * If your device is constantly emitting a [signal] that uniquely 
> identifies it, the whole world is going to have (yet another) way to
> track you. Marketers already use WiFi and Bluetooth MAC addresses to do
> this: Find My could create yet another tracking channel. >
> * It also exposes the phones who are doing the tracking. These people 
> are now going to be sending their current location to Apple (which they 
> may or may not already be doing). Now they’ll also be potentially 
> sharing this information with strangers who “lose” their devices. That 
> could go badly. >
> * Scammers might also run active attacks in which they fake the
> location of your device. While this seems unlikely, people will always
> surprise you.
There are no user controls for turning the hardware that allows the various 
forms of tracking on and off. It wouldn't be hard to add a simple on-off 
switch for Bluetooth, WiFi, and anything else to let the user easily and 
quickly decide where they want to be tracked (so users can make a more 
informed privacy trade-off suited to their needs and desires).

Also, any organization where location data can be tracked gains power 
through being able to predict one's movements -- where & when you've gone 
for the past 3 months helps determine where & when you'll go for the next 3 
months. You'd find this kind of detail and notetaking creepy if it were 
done in person, but when there's no clearly visible person spying on one's 
every movement people tend to glibly dismiss or forget that this 
information is invaluable to help others: rob their home or car when it's 
unlikely they'll be around, spy on them remotely (you can't tell when a 
phone's mic is hot), share information with others (including other 
individuals, figures of power and authority like police and governments, or 
political opponents). Why place that faith in a proprietor -- an 
organization that has already shown you they don't trust you enough to 
control what is supposed to be your own device?

And there's no discrimination for the age of the user in all of this: if 
your child has a tracker (phone), or other computer running proprietary 
software, it too could be set up to spy on that child's location and 
whatever else is in mic or camera range. Would it be okay if someone 
followed your child around and listened in on their conversations just 
because they were curious what your kid was up to? If not, keep in mind 
that there's no way to know if your kid's tracker (phone) isn't doing that.

FastCompany.com claimed that "Apple's best product is now privacy"

 From 
https://www.fastcompany.com/90236195/forget-the-new-iphones-apples-best-product-is-now-privacy

> In 2018, no issue is more important than user privacy–or the lack of it.
> We’re tracked by private industry on an unprecedented scale, with major
> corporations having so much data about us–much of it gleaned without our
> knowledge–that they can tell when a teenager is pregnant (and inform the
> teen’s father[1]) or even predict your future actions[2] based on
> decisions you haven’t made yet. If you want to be part of this world,
> designed by advertisers and tech giants, you must relinquish your right
> to privacy. In other words, we live in a commercial surveillance state.
> 
> Well, unless you use Apple’s products.
[1] 
http://www.slate.com/blogs/how_not_to_be_wrong/2014/06/09/big_data_what_s_even_creepier_than_target_guessing_that_you_re_pregnant.html
[2] 
https://theintercept.com/2018/04/13/facebook-advertising-data-artificial-intelligence-ai/

The first part is almost all true -- one can take steps to not submit to 
the surveillance state but most computer users don't take such steps. But 
the last part about Apple being an exception is unprovable (due to how 
proprietary software works) and that last part is known to be untrue 
because of the available evidence. Proprietary software simply doesn't 
allow Fast Company (or anyone else) to stand behind such a claim.

We already know from Snowden's evidence that Apple joined the NSA's PRISM 
program in October 2012[3] and no proprietary software is trustworthy 
because (by definition) proprietary software cannot be legally inspected to 
learn what it does, or legally altered to do something else, or legally 
shared with others to help our community. So Apple's users can't legally 
make Apple's proprietary software (such as iOS, much of MacOS X, and most 
tracker/phone apps) behave differently. If an Apple device reports 
something somewhere which the user doesn't want reported, the user can only 
reject running the software that rats them out (assuming they know which 
program did this).

For example, we know from a 2011 article in The Telegraph[4] that

> An unpatched security flaw in Apple’s iTunes software allowed 
> intelligence agencies and police to hack into users’ computers for more 
> than three years
jbn: iTunes is proprietary, so iTunes users (no matter how capable or 
willing) were denied permission to fix iTunes. And Apple apparently didn't 
fix the problem for over 3 years. There are many more such problems for 
Apple including discovery of back doors, Apple censorship, Apple using 
technical restrictions known as DRM -- digital restrictions management -- 
to keep people from using their computers as they wish, Apple's 
surveillance, and more[5].

[3] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Prism_slide_5.jpg
[4] 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8912714/Apple-iTunes-flaw-allowed-government-spying-for-3-years.html
[5] https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html

-J