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Cometh The Censor
Submitted by Fred Reed via Fred On Everything blog,
I see with no surprise that Washington is stepping up its campaign to censor the internet. It had to come, and will succeed. It will put paid forever to America’s flirtation with freedom.
The country was never really a democracy, meaning a polity in which final power rested with the people. The voters have always been too remote from the levers of power to have much influence. Yet for a brief window of time there actually was freedom of a sort. With the censorship of the net—it will be called “regulation”—the last hope of retaining former liberty will expire.
Over the years freedom has declined in inverse proportion to the reach of the central government. (Robert E. Lee: “I consider the constitutional power of the General Government as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.” Yep.)
Through most of the country’s history, Washington lacked the ability to meddle, control, micromanage, and punish. In 1850, it had precious little knowledge of events in lands such as Wyoming, Tennessee, or West Virginia, no capacity to do much about them, and not a great deal of interest. People on remote farms and in small towns governed themselves as they chose, not always well but without rule by distant bureaucracies and moneyed interests.
For a sunny few years, local freedom rested substantially on principle, a notion inconceivable now. The Thomas Jeffersons, George Washingtons, and Robert E. Lees genuinely believed in freedom, and worried about the coming of tyranny. Justices of the Supreme Court often upheld the tenets of the Bill of Rights. As human affairs go—poorly, as a rule—it was impressive.
As time went by, however, it became clear that incapacity, not principle, was the only reliable brake on the rise of dictatorship. In 1950, the government could put a mail cover on anyone, quite possibly illegally if the FBI were involved, but steaming envelopes open required time, effort, and manpower. Mass surveillance was impossible, and so didn’t happen. Without surveillance, there can be no control.
For a long time it was due to principle that freedom of the press remained, no matter how much the government hated it. During the war in Vietnam, “underground” papers, which of course published openly, were virulently critical of the government. The mainstream media of the time published shocking photographs of the war, much to the fury of the Pentagon. The courts allowed it.
Today, that has changed. Washington has learned to avoid dissent from its wars by using a volunteer army of men about whom no one of influence cares. The use of “drones” further reduces public interest, and today the major media, owned by corporations aligned with arms manufacturers and manned by intimidated reporters, hide the results on the battlefield. For practical purposes, today’s press is an arm of government.
The old checks and balances, however modest in their effects, have withered. The Supreme Court is now a branch office of Madame Tussaud’s, Congress a two-headed corpse, the Constitution a scrap of moldering parchment remembered only by hopeless romantics, and Washington a sandbox of unaccountable hacks inbred to the point of hemophilia. Obama has discovered that he can do almost anything, calling it an executive order, and no one will dare challenge him.
In its rare waking moments, the Supreme Court has shown little inclination to protect the Bill of Rights, which Washington regards as quaint at best and, usually, an annoyance to be overcome by executive order and judicial somnolence. The obvious reality that having the government read every email, record every telephone conversation, monitor every financial transaction and so on is a gross violation of the Fourth Amendment bothers neither the Supremes nor, heaven knows, the President. It is clearly unconstitutional, but we do not live in constitutional times. Governments aggregate power. They do not relinquish it, short of revolution.
Today the internet is the only free press we have, all that stands against total control of information. Consider how relentlessly the media impose political correctness, how the slightest offense to the protected groups—we all know who they are—or to sacred policies leads to firing of reporters and groveling by politicians. The wars are buried and serious criticism of Washington suppressed. That leaves the net, only the net, without which we would know nothing.
Which is why it must be and will be censored, sooner if Washington can get away with it and later if not. The tactics are predictable. First, “hate speech” will be banned. The government will tell us whom we can hate and whom we cannot. “Hatred” will be vaguely defined so that one will never be sure when one is engaging in it and, since it will be prosecutable, one will have to be very careful. Disapproval of favored groups, or of their behavior, will be defined as hatred. National security will be invoked, silencing whistle-blowers or, eventually, anything that might make the public uneasy with Washington’s wars.
The next step probably will be to block links to foreign sites deemed to transgress. China is good at this. The most likely avenue will be executive orders of increasingly Draconian nature, about which Congress and the Dead—the Supreme Court, I meant to say—will do nothing.
At that point, coming soon to a theater near you, the United States as it was intended to be, and to an extent was, will be over. Our increasingly characterless young, raised to ignorance and Appropriate Thought by government schools, will question nothing. They will have no way of knowing that there is anything to question.
I suppose it can be debated whether the current enstupidation of the rising generations is deliberate or merely the consequence of a return to peasantry inescapable in a democracy. The petulance and immaturity running through so much of society may be inevitable in a spoiled people who have never had to do anything and have never been told “no.” Certainly things today resemble the end games of other once-dominant cultures.
Mental darkness facilitates authoritarianism, and darkness we have. Many college graduates can barely read. Their ignorance of history, politics, and geography (and practically everything else) is profound, and they see no reason why they should know anything. They seem not to suspect that there might be things worth knowing.
I am hard pressed to think of a society in such internal decline that has turned itself around, and I cannot imagine how ours might do so. One sure thing is that, once the internet is gelded, there will be no hope at all. And the assault has begun.
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You think they can shut down the internet?
If they could shut it down (or even control it) they would have a long time ago . . . . TPTB have to believe that allowing the internet evolve into what it has become is the biggest mistake in their thousand year history of trying to control humanity (beside letting Guttenberg do his thing).
Will they outlaw or make me have a license to use a VPN or TOR? If they outlaw the use of a VPN and TOR will I go to the FEMA gulag or will they just shoot me? Aw fuck it, when they knock on the door I will shoot first. I hope I am not alone.
You are not alone.
TOR status as a private network is under debate.
If the internet was around when the communist manifesto was written, I'm sure it would have been included. Commie item # 21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
TV: https://thezog.wordpress.com/who-controls-television/
Motion Picture Shows: https://thezog.wordpress.com/who-controls-hollywood/
Radio: https://thezog.wordpress.com/who-controls-radio/
Truth is not Hate Speech
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Always like you Jew-Hating Dopes.
If the Jews are so all powerful, why do they let mouthpieces like you continue to yap and expose them?
Give it a break.
•?•
V-V
Not all jews are bad, fuckface.
It's just that a zionist power structure does exist and to them, we are goy cattle.
There's a zionist power structure vying for control of the world just as much as there's other power structures trying for the same. Think of this as an advanced football game with the coaches/managers/owners being the controllers and the sheeple being the players on the field. And instead of two teams on the fields, there's dozens.
Of course there's always the guys who own the entire thing, but we don't know who they are, do we? That's the question. Who's running the game?
amen zion did not leave
When the other gods did.
It is his time now.
I got tickets to opening day of the New York Jews v. the SF Chinamen
http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/browbeat/2013/10/10/mascot_...
"Of course there's always the guys who own the entire thing, but we don't know who they are, do we? That's the question. Who's running the game?"
Answer:
The Rothchilds - est. worth 100 Trillion
The Banks: (fill in the fucking blanks): probably combined 100 Trillion - and the fucks that own them, down to the ignorant mom and pop shareholders. Give or take a couple of billion....
The Global Mob - est. over 100 Trillion worldwide. Give or take a billion or so....
The 80 richest "KNOWN" (i.e. Gates, Buffett) have interests in lots of shit - thrown out there for "show" and there you go.
"I support net neutrality" President Obama.
Enough said. Any mention of the 'net' by that fuckhead in any shape or form = ruination of the net.
I personally don't think people are going to put up with this bullshit lying down because it will take extreme measures to enforce it. Such as arrests, suicided web owners, etc.
It won't work. They'll try it. The result will be pure clusterfuck. Just like the Middle East.
The shitheads in the US gov't need to be Greeced.
Fuckin Amen.
Let's see the fucks enforce it - whatever they pass.
The joke that is Fuckbama is over soon. Tent the WH for fumigation once the whoop is gone - and a special douching of the WW for Jarrett cooties....among many feces and vermin that's inhabited that hole...
Problem is...it'll be a new puppet moving in.
Good thing is it won't be Fuckbama.....
You just said it... let's see them enforce it.
There are laws on paper piled to the cieling that can never be enforced.
Let's see how far they get with a law ordering mass gun confiscation.
You ever heard the term, "Show me a man, any man, and I will show you the 3 laws that he unknowingly broke today" (or something like that).
Enemies of the state have always existed, right? But they are not always the same enemies of the state from administration to administration, until now. The difference now is that the govt, at virtually all levels have been infiltrated by sympathizers to the controlling party and we will never be able to rid ourselves of the scum. Add the same thing to virtually all major communications, security, technology, financial, educational institution and you have a gigantic base of power.
I argue that it does not matter what is on or not on the paper piled to the ceiling. No one knows, nor cares, as long as one of those 3 laws you break on that particular day happen to support the narrative. Precedant is being set each and every day, and lack of successful challenge only supports the actions and lays support for further...
goodluck with net nuetrality ... and Kiev....
Country republic is over. We are over. Just die or fight back until you have nothing left to fight with. Fuck. My kids...I'm throwing them at the fascists...with their iphones too. Die scum.
Communists is the correct term.
Communists is the correct term.
Welcome to the underground bitchez.
Yt will lose all his ammo and then the internet, Reggie, hahahhahahah!
(evil laugh)
No more AJ or ZH!!
Hahhahahhaha
(evil laugh)
Know what I think about this censorship BS?
I think XXXXXXX XX XXXXXXXXXX XXX XXXXXXXX and then I think we should XXXXXXXXXXXXXX X XXXXXXX XXXX
Before they XXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXx XX XXX XXXXXXXXX elections XXXXXX X XXXX XX XXX rubberized XXXXXXXXXX.
Otherwise, it will be too XXXX and XXX help us all.
Shit man, you are admitting that you think? and twice?
The Swat Team is heading your way next, right after they visit the guy that wants to polute all the streams and kill all the feild mice.
Good knowing ya.
We can create our own MESH Networks to get around the "man" and comunicate freely.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/08/mesh-internet-privacy-nsa-isp
What's needed is a peer to peer network that can work online yes but also offline. So for example a phone can transmit data to a destination using intermediate phones which might or might not be online at a specific point in time.
This gets rid of the central point of control. It's also somewhat challenging.
There are obvious limitations. Obviously no use for web browsing, but email and bulletin board type systems could work.
The MESH network concept smacks of the pre-internet days of "bulletin boards" that were accessed via 14.4K baud dial-up modems. For years prior to the web that was the only way to share both files and viewpoints using a computer (anyone remember the IBM "PC" with a wopping 640K of memory or the Commodore "64" that used a cassette tape for memory storage???).
With high gain antennas and high output WIFI devices ranges in the area of 3-5 miles are possible. Technology WILL overcome any .gov attempt to censor and or limit free speech using computers . . . . .
Censoring the reality of the peasants wont stop Russian nukes detonating over NYC, Washington DC.
Non-descript separatists, you mean?
It's OK. Do not panic! In the fast approaching collapse "internet freedom" will be the least of USSAns worries.
Enjoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2em1x2j9-o
The way you solve internet censorship is by starting a small newpaper publication that provices ZH type news. Set these papers up at every conveinace store in the US.
Broadsheets
Better yet... pamphlets.
Dropped by drones that we build in maker classes.
I'm not a great tech guy, but instead of everyone having personal dishes on top their houses or whatever I wonder if somehow we could use drones in some kind of network? They could act as some kind of transmitter and be moved about continuously. Just throwing out random thoughts without thinking much. Instead of pamphlets we could design some type of lightweight flashdrives that could be dropped off in various locations, collected by a vector(or whatever you'd call them lol) and then they plug it in the pc and print off pamphlets for their immediate subscriber zone. ETC ETC ETC. Damn, I should start writing this shit down lol.
Damn, and further polute our streams and rivers? Poison the feild mice and precious deer that will happen upon these pamphlets or other devices? Litter our highways and parks? This surely will hasten global change destruction, or cause more comets to barely miss the earth, or something. I can see the global warming hockey stick growing like Pinocio's nose trying to deny he inhaled or that he had sex with that girl.
The Swat Teams are jumping in their tanks and armoured carriers right now heading to your place.
Good knowing ya.
You could also build small mechanical devices that could serve different purporses. For instance, one of them could have a ramming, or hammering, device that could shatter a glass door and be equiped with a camera so the user could be some distance away. We could call them "My Little Assholes".
Just think of the possibilities: imagine one of them equiped with a barrel and gun shell and camflaouged as a pile of leaves. Who needs an accurate, and possibly soon to be illegal, gun barrel when the target is only a couple feet away and you have a bullseye on your 3' wide tv screen?
Surely everyone at a corporate meeting would welcome a friendly looking, self-automated, pizza wagon with fresh pizza under a heat lamp on top and Dominos banners drapped all over the sides and flashing "free pizza" lights. Nevermind what's inside........it's not pizza lol. People will always be gullible. Hell, the overgrown security guard will probably break his neck trying to be the first one to the cart.
The point i'm tryin to make is that for every bullshit action by the government---shit is just going to squirt out the sides and manifest into another problem for them. As long as we exist there's no stopping us. We have the technology and minds to defeat any bullshit put forth by the clowns that think otherwise.
I have no intent on building or using any of this type of stuff 'however' if the governent keeps pushing people into a corner they will be like a trapped wild animal and do anything to escape or even attack the aggressor. Last time I checked there are plenty of laid off mechanical engineers pissed off at the world over such issues as corporate assholes bringing in foreigners to do their jobs. There will be some kind of response, rather good or bad, to every bullshit action taken by the elite fuckheads.
As an example, how did I just come up with these crazy ideas out of thin air? Well let's see, the gov't uses drones. Drones are nothing more than RC airplanes with digital control. The gov't does crazy shit like build small bugs that can spy on you etc. Who builds this shit? People that are good at mechanical design and electronics, or a collaboration. Do these types of people only work for the gov't? No. Therefore it's possible for anyone to do this shit. It's even possible for people that don't know how. Just have someone else do it for you. In the end......we're either going to be forced to all get along or it will just be a constant fight from the top that results in even more crazy ideas from the slaves. The more the gov't puts the hammer down, the faster high-teck terrorism will come about. You have a hard time trusting shit now? Just wait.
Looks like the US amerikans will have to fight the oligarchy and banks. During those long years when Ron Paul has tried to wake up the folks.. and failed. The real war will wake up the that land for sure.
"Send it" will hopefully start resounding throughout the centers of power.
Never in the brief history of modern facist police states have the people been so well armed... with more small arms firepower than any standing army on Earth.
We are in uncharted waters.
Please please please censor the internet!
That way a black market for information will spring up and information will become more available than ever.
Maybe in the future there will be less.racial discrimination in that blacks will also be eligible to be charged with hate crimes.
Its been a "Whites Only" thing for way too long....
Hear, hear, a voice of reality ....
I, for one, believe that technology will keep one step ahead of any effort to regulate or censor free speech on the internet. If they can't stop things like bittorrent and dark web markets how are they going to prevent free information sharing on the net?
That's my belief also. Only way they could enforce it would be a gunpoint and with such stupid crap as "You write that you get 30 years" etc. This will result in a massive amount of backlash and result in pure chaos. Everyone knows what these clowns are up to. It doesn't stop them from trying and it's as if they think everyone is just going to foget about everything they've been exposed to. Not gona happen.
The most powerful tool in the arsenal to defeat overbearing power, the great destroyer of empires and ambitions, is not revolution - but incompetence. Quiet, often intentional, selective, unappologetic, and clueless incompetence will destroy any enemy, either from without or within.
Because it cuts so close to the natural vices in human nature, it should be taught as the last ditch weapon against tyranny.
I hate to be the positive one in any conversation, because I'm quite sure humans are finished, and humans are a failed species. And so, dismal consequences are certainly straight ahead.
However, I must say, the technology exists to implement a "private internet" that works just like the existing one (in the sense of supporting HTML, email and other currently supported formats). And as the "public internet" is taken over by government, the market for "private internet" naturally grows.
Given they already has the technology to place satellites in orbit, I would not be surprised to see SpaceX create a satellite based internet, where all communication flows up and down (from homes up to satellites, and from satellites to homes). The NSA will have one hell of a time trying to figure out how to intercept a billion separate vertical up-down links! That is vastly more difficult than what they must do now... perhaps millions of times more difficult.
Furthermore, if NSA was to attempt anything of this nature, the up and down links could be implemented with optical links rather than radio links, which would make the difficulty even more extreme. Also, to intercept communications between the satellites in such an orbiting satellite internet system would also be extremely difficult.
Not to place all chickens in one pot, "private internet" can also be implemented by swarms of forwarding links placed on tiny cheap foam "toy" aircraft. With millions of tiny devices made of foam wandering around above (powered by sunlight during daytime), much of a private internet is practical. I'm not sure off the top of my head how to best implement nighttime operations, but those problems can be solved. The most obvious and probably least efficient method would simply require two or three times as many toy aircraft, each of which would automatically return to the ground, recharge, and then take-off again as necessary... all without human control or monitoring.
I'm sure others have considered what is required to implement "private internet" much more thoroughly than I have. And without a doubt, more than one someone will take advantage of the market for uncensored information exchange the more the government screws up the internet.
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As for the rest of the article, my answer is clear. Get the hell outta dodge!
a truly 'mobile' network ...
as for satellites, aren't they vulnerable to being shot down, if not now, then in the near future ?
Well, not literally "shot down" like "with a gun". But yes, satellites can be "crashed into" which does the trick. And they can be "exploded" by projectiles from other satellites.
However, you have to realize a few things.
First, that is a blatant act of war (assuming they are launched from another nation, which hopefully they would be).
Second, when you blow up a satellite, that scatters debris all over the place, which then destroys other satellites, which then creates even more debris, which then destroys other satellites, and so forth. Which means even if the USSA only destroyed satellites put into orbit by an american company (perhaps SpaceX), that would also destroy numerous other satellites and pollute orbital space with much debris.
Having said that, I don't want to overstate this scenario. What was portrayed in the movie "Gravity" was somewhat exaggerated. Not in the sense of overstating the damage that can be done, but in the sense of implying how global and quick the consequences of "shooting a single satellite" would be to craft in other orbits. But I don't want to understate this scenario either. To trash spacecraft is very, very bad news and can have enormous and not fully predictable consequences. And to trash a whole slew of satellites as would be required for a private internet would be enormous.
I don't think the USSA wants to destroy most of its own military and civilian spacecraft, and pollute orbital space with debris, just to destroy private internet.
yes, 'shot down' was meant w/ a bit of tongue-in-cheek.
so there's a satellite-scoped version of MAD, and it's a crowded neighborhoud 'out there' ....
thx, aka
Internet censorship is already taking place albeit subtly in USA. First WSJ made nearly all their articles for subscribers only and as such, subscribers only would be able to comment, hence it would be easier for USA government to find out their real indentities.
Next, Bloomberg and others have totally eliminated their readers' comments pages. Apparently too many readers were voicing opinions other than those of the Ministry of Truth.
If Zerohedge plans to continue I strongly adivse that you, like many others before you, move offshore to another country. Eventually the government WILL silience you - it is all a matter of time. Many private newsletters have done just that; they have gone offshore and they are the better for it. I suggest you make your plans and be gone before the end of this year whiile you are still free to do so.
It's great to see some progress in the US Developers from NYC.