BUT…
I am seventy-plus years old. I have been around the block numerous times;
and though I don’t think that age necessarily equates to intelligence – I can
post an impressive resume. And, the one
thing I know for sure is: I don’t blindly trust our government to act in our
best interest.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am a loyal American (of American
ideals) – and I have the scars to prove it.
But, I don’t trust our government (politicians.) Our
government has never been a government of the people, by the people… etc. It has always been the government of special
interest and “the bigger picture” gamesmanship.
Our government constantly packages swamp land as “Preferred
Real Estate Property” and sells it to the citizenry. They tell us it’s candy but in the bottom of
the box there is often a scorpion.
The last thing I blindly bought into was the liberation of
the South Vietnamese people in the Vietnam war; only to discover that our real
reason for occupying South Vietnam was to tactically establish a permanent
nuclear military presence on the southern border of China (sounds familiar in
reverse: Cuban missile crisis.) Then,
of course, “Iraqi Freedom” where a White House full of oil men invade a country
with the second largest oil reserve on earth.
We have constantly been sold a bill of goods only to find
that some patriotic spin name has been added to cover up the smell: The Patriot Act – I need say no more.
We have moved from Bush’s “phone tapping of (only) foreign
suspected terrorist”, to authorized surveillance of American citizens and to expanded
surveillance authority for civilian police.
Now Obama has just signed an appropriations bill that allows the
government to arrest and detain, without trial, any American citizen suspected
of terrorist connections. Obama says he
will not use this authority, but what about a future fundamentalist, Tea Party,
Republican President – what about a President Cheney clone?
Think
about how this could fit in to George Orwell’s 1984 repackaged as 20XX.
Now there is a new government threat covertly aimed at taking
the first step to control and censor the Internet.
On October 26, 2011 the Bill HR-3261 was introduced by Lamar
Smith (R-TX.) The bill is touted to prevent the piracy of U.S. U.S.
It’s the - “and for other purposes,” - that bothers me. At first glance the bill seems to require
Internet providers to monitor customer’s traffic and block web sites suspected
of copyright infringement.
But, the bill also states that it would make unauthorized streaming
of copyright material a crime with a maximum imprisonment of 5 years for ten
infringements within six months.
That has me nailed;
and probably everyone reading this blog who include pictures or YouTube clips
on your post. This is an open invitation
to some political regime of the future to use the NSA or FBI to monitor web
sites and blogs that they feel are not in the best interest of Big Brother and
shut you down; or to threaten or actually imprison people that speak out. (Does anybody still remember the First Amendment
to the Constitution?)
The internet should not be the property of any government
and no government should have the right to censor it “for the greater good” of
its people.
the Ol’Buzzard.
It was fun while it lasted.
ReplyDeleteOne of the greatest posts I've ever read.
ReplyDeleteAfter the dust settled from the big protest on the internet this week and the serious attempt to educate America this week about the origins of SOPA and PIPA....we learned that we do have a voice. we learned that any attempt to control the internet is pointless. To control it in the sense that these bills would have dreamt of would mean to take the entire thing down rebuild it and then, they would have to do it all over again and again. The day the internet protests happened, the US Justice Dept made their big move against MegaUploads....MegaUploads went down because they were too big, living too large and actually engaged in identifiable traditional criminal enterprise...i.e: money laundering on a massive scale....
ReplyDeleteThe unpredictable outcome of the Megaupload takedown was the realtime massive retaliation by Anonymous...let's face it, what anonymous did to the US Justice Department website and the Recording industry's websites were just child's play. A playful warning shot over the bow of the SOPA/PIPA advocates little schooner.
What the take down did demonstrate was that the legislation was unnecessary. We don't need it to police the internet from criminal elements. It did expose the real intent of SOPA?PIPA though and it was another lesson for all of us in the struggle to protect the freedom of the world wide web. They'll try this again later this year, but now we are ready for them!