Don’t discard the possibility of being taken

Looking around my fellow bloggers I stumbled upon this post by leg-iron, writing almost about the same as my current thinking, but I need to put in a disclaimer. Just because you're (or aren’t...) paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

There is no secret that the high and mighty are trying to impose different sorts of control of the internet. You don’t need to be a conspiracist to see the urinating against the wall, forming words like “monitoring”, “surveillance”, and “punishment”. Those in charge have never been so exposed before, it’s an unprecedented situation where anyone can find information, post it online and form opinions. MPs, banksters, tricksters and even journalists are under a giant thumb of scrutiny and the slightest step in the wrong direction may very well end a carrier or put a stop to a program. Whereas the elitists have had not only information monopoly, but also the right to first interpretation of news, they now come in second at best.

Of course they need to fight back.

There isn’t a single reasonably thinking individual that falls for the talk about stopping terrorists or protecting children from pedophiles, we know that’s ridiculous.

If a single really dangerous terrorist get caught by government reading our emails, it would be the biggest surprise of a lifetime.

Another usual argument is that drugs and bomb-making have been made more easily available now that people are just clicks away from such things. This is, of course, also mixed with the “won’t someone please think of the children” – argument. Like access to drugs or information on how to make things go boom haven’t been available before. I have known how to make a bomb since I got pubis-hair, any decent terrorist-attack-USA-movie may contain such information, and libraries are filled with books on the subject. Why aren’t they hindering youngsters from entering libraries? And drugs? Please. There isn’t a single person on this planet more than two phone calls away from any drug you can think of.

The economic argument of protecting certain industries from online-piracy, illegal copying and free distribution, is also a false one. The same arguments from the very same people have been made before when the radio emerged, when TV got to be everyman’s property, and when MTV materialize in the ether. But we don’t even need to look at music and information spread, go read about ‘spinning-jenny’ or what happened when light-bulbs got into production. Anti-technology groups have always existed, arguing about job-losses, effects on the environment or other maddening claims.

A funny side-note, speaking of the light-bulb, there now exist a black-market for light-bulbs since the EU managed to ban that product. How funny isn’t that? And since China are imposing tariffs on several metals used for many of the alternatives, that black-market will probably flourish.

Anyway, back to the notion of government doing us over online, it is not hard to imagine regular bans of critical or “over the top” information sites. We have already heard elitists saying that certain blogs are a nuisance, we have read about suggestion that blogs should be registered, and that new government entities should "rate" such sites. It has even been suggested that certain “radical elements” ought to be totally banned, forcing internet-suppliers, whom work with the consent of government, to cut those elements off. To no surprise it’s mainly libertarian and communist blogs getting the main thrashing, but the leap over to ban any form of critic-blog isn’t really far.

Interesting enough, many purely information-sites are also under investigation.

Medical information-sites, for instance, have been criticized lately since many of those argue against swine-flu vaccinations, “tricking” people to not believe in the scaremongering of WHO and maybe even questioning the very content of the vaccine. I read an article today about nurses and doctors in a US-state going to rally against forced inoculations for health-personnel. One of the negative comments from an authority figure was directly aimed at the “alternative” viewpoint being told from doctors online.

With this in mind it makes the old-media talk about making you pay for news online very self-explanatory.

It also makes this recent statement from the American President fully explained:
“I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding,”

In my opinion it’s just a matter of time.

Certain political parties and some citizens complaining about this direction will not hinder the pending end-result. As with any from on high proposal you can stop some of the content or make them take another path, but in the end the elitists will emerge victorious. If they cannot block a certain blog, with some pesky law or public opinion in the way, they will just work around it by subsidizing internet suppliers that do not have critical voices, restrict access to government information or create a new law (read: “patriot-act”) to supersede the old laws. The only thing in the way is the imagination of those in charge, and comes to protecting themselves and their cronies; imagination doesn’t come in short supply.

Another thing that is just a matter of time before it pops up, in one form or the other, is ways of discredit certain individuals or opinions, which we already have seen happen.

Just as Leg-iron I’m not very worried about myself or about any other critical voice for being picked up and thrown in jail for no reason, and I don’t really care about that dossier the Swedish Secret police have on me or the fact that FBI have visited my blog on several occasions. However, there are other ways for the thought-police to conjure up charges or lay hinder in the way of critic.

Maybe your blog have been visited by a well known criminal gang, and didn’t you know a drug-dealer in collage? What about that photograph of a naked lady you watched yesterday? Wasn’t she underage? And putting up pictures of your child bathing? You pedophile you. Don’t you make money of your blog? Maybe the IRS should knock on your door. Aren’t you using too many profanities? That is surely enough reason to block your site at schools, public libraries and such. Did a person die from not taking a vaccine after reading your blog? How about liability for that?

Again, only the imagination is in the way of making up such accusations.

So I’m not worried per se, however, I do see a future where incriminating “evidence”, new laws and other ingenious plots emerging on the scene, doing the same thing, but in a different way.

Our great leaders are well on the way of creating the sort of Orwellian nightmare any old STASI-commander would drool over. And with all this power in their hands, they will use it - you can be absolute sure about that.

But maybe the most interesting part of all this, is the state of the economy in relation to information. There are so many people being heard all over the world saying the truth about how grim our financial situation is and how the future really looks, pointing to the real criminals whom are still roaming free. Looking around you can find lots of real facts contradicting anything the power elitists say. So it is not hard to not to put this in relation to the growing monitoring and impending control of alternative sources.

I would claim that the two are completely linked to each other.

The worse our economy becomes the worse command functions will be imposed regarding internet. The more crises’ materializing, the more they want to control the information. In fact, I would go so far to say that before the next big economic blow-out we will see totalitarian laws and restrictions - as we have in China, Iran, and recently, in France. This is also why I expect G20 and the EU to hurry things along, because the real tsunami wave of the depression is not far from hitting the shoreline.

Don’t let them stop the signal, and don’t believe for a second that they cannot stop internet entirely, they will find a way if needed, this you can also be absolutely sure of. It’s all a matter of time.